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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

p.._._. _ iop^nglt lo, 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



GOD'S LIGHT 



ON 



DARK CLOUDS. 



BY 

THEODORE L. CUYLER, 

PASTOR OF LAFAYETTE AVENUE CHURCH, BROOKLYN. 



7 



4 



t>><8><o 



O 1882 

NEW YORK: 
ROBERT CARTER AND BROTHERS, 

530 Broadway. 
1882. 






0^ 



Copyright, 1882, 
By Robert Carter and Brothers. 



WAbiiiNGlON 



Unr-ersity Press: 
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. 



TO 

THE DESPONDING 

AND 

THE BEREAVED, 

THESE WORDS OF SYMPATHY AND CHEER 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

God's Light on Dark Clouds 7 

Burning the Barley-field . 15 

Weeping and Working 24 

Short Views 29 

Flowers from the Tomb of Jesus .... T^y 

Trusting God in the Dark 43 

God's School, and its Lessons 51 

God's Unfoldings 59 

Christ Shepherding his Flock 68 

The Everlasting Arms jy 

Words for the Weary 85 

The Lord Reigneth 93 

Up to the Hills loi 

Right Seeing no 

The Lord our Strength 117 

A Constant Salvation 126 

Healthy and Happy 134 

The Angels of the Sepulchre 141 

The Night-Lodging and the Day-dawn . . 147 

Our Two Homes 155 



GOD^S LIGHT ON DARK CLOUDS. 



TO-DAY as I sit in my lonely room, 
this passage of God's Word flies in 
like a white dove through the window: 
*' And now men see not the bright light 
which is in the clouds; but the wind pass- 
eth and cleanseth [or cleareth] them.'' To 
my weak vision, dimmed with tears, the 
cloud is exceeding dark, but through it 
stream some rays from the infinite love 
that fills the Throne with an exceeding and 
eternal brightness of glory. By and by 
we may get above and behind that cloud 
into the overwhelming light. We shall 
not need comfort then ; we want it now. 
And for our present consolation God lets 



8 GOD'S LIGHT ON DARK CLOUDS. 

through the clouds some clear, strong, 
distinct rays of love and gladness. 

One truth that beams in through the va- 
pors is this : God not only reigns, but He 
governs His world by a most beautiful law 
of compensations. He setteth one thing 
over against another. Faith loves to study 
the illustrations of this law, notes them in 
her diary, and rears her pillars of praise 
for every fresh discovery. I have noticed 
that the deaf often have an unusual quick- 
ness of eyesight ; the blind are often gifted 
with an increased capacity for hearing ; and 
sometimes when the eye is darkened and 
the ear is closed, the sense of touch be- 
comes so exquisite that we are able to con- 
verse with the sufferer through that sense 
alone. This law explains why God puts so 
many of His people under a sharp regimen 
of hardship and burden-bearing in order 
that they may be sinewed into strength; 
why a Joseph must be shut into a prison in 
order that he may be trained for a palace 



GOD'S LIGHT ON DARK CLOUDS. 9 

and for the premiership of the kingdom. 
Outside of the Damascus Gate I saw the 
spot where Stephen was stoned into a cruel 
death ; but that martyr blood was not only 
the '' seed of the Church," but the first 
germ of conviction in the heart of Saul of 
Tarsus. This law explains the reason why 
God often sweeps away a Christian's pos- 
sessions in order that he may become rich 
in faith, and why He dashes many persons 
off the track of prosperity, where they were 
running at fifty miles the hour, in order 
that their pride might be crushed, and that 
they might seek the safer track of humility 
and holy living. What a wondrous com- 
pensation our bereaved nation is receiving 
for the loss of him who was laid the other 
day in his tomb by the lakeside ! That 
cloud is already raining blessings, and 
richer showers may be yet to come. God's 
people are never so exalted as when they 
are brought low, never so enriched as when 
they are emptied, never so advanced as 



lO GOD'S LIGHT ON DARK CLOUDS. 

when they are set back by adversity, never 
so near the crown as when under the cross. 
One of the sweetest enjoyments of heaven 
will be to review our own experiences 
under this law of compensations, and to see 
how often affliction worked out for us the 
exceeding weight of glory. 

There is a great want in all God's peo- 
ple who have never had the education of 
sharp trial. There are so many graces 
that can only be pricked into us by the, 
puncture of suffering, and so many lessons 
that can only be learned through tears, 
that when God leaves a Christian without 
any trials. He really leaves him to a ter- 
rible danger. His heart, unploughed by 
discipline, will be very apt to run to the 
tares of selfishness, and worldliness, and 
pride. In a musical instrument there 
are some keys that must be touched in 
order to evoke its fullest melodies ; God 
is a wonderful organist, who knows just 
what heart-chord to strike. In the Black 



GOD'S LIGHT ON DARK CLOUDS. II 

Forest of Germany a baron built a castle 
with two lofty towers. From one tower 
to the other he stretched several wires, 
which in calm weather were motionless and 
silent. When the wind began to blow, the 
wires began to play like an ^olian harp 
in the window. As the wind rose into a 
fierce gale, the old baron sat in his cas- 
tle and heard his mighty hurricane-harp 
playing grandly over the battlements. So, 
while the weather is calm and the skies 
clear, a great many of the emotions of a 
Christian's heart are silent As soon as 
the wind of adversity smites the chords, 
the heart begins to play; and when God 
sends a hurricane of terrible trial you will 
hear strains of submission and faith, and 
even of sublime confidence and holy exulta- 
tion, which could never have been heard in 
the calm hours of prosperity. Oh, breth- 
ren, let the winds smite us, if they only 
make the spices flow; let us not shrink 
from the deepest trial, if at midnight we 
can only sing praises to God ! 



12 GOD'S LIGHT ON DARK CLOUDS. 

If we want to know what clouds of afflic- 
tion mean and what they are sent for, we 
must not flee away from them in fright with 
closed ears and bandaged eyes. Fleeing 
from the cloud is fleeing from the Divine 
love that is behind the cloud. In one of 
the German picture-galleries is a painting 
called ^' Cloudland " ; it hangs at the end 
of a long gallery, and at first sight it looks 
like a huge repulsive daub of confused 
color, without form or comeliness. As you 
walk towards it the picture begins to take 
shape; it proves to be a mass of exquisite 
little cherub faces, like those at the head 
of the canvas in Raphael's '' Madonna San 
Sisto.'' If you come close to the picture, 
you see only an innumerable company of 
little angels and cherubim ! How often 
the soul that is frightened by trial sees noth- 
ing but a confused and repulsive mass of 
broken expectations and crushed hopes ! 
But if that soul, instead of fleeing away into 
unbelief and despair, would only draw up 



GOD'S LIGHT ON DARK CLOUDS. I 3 

near to God, it would soon discover that 
the cloud was full of angels of mercy. In 
one cherub-face it would see " Whom I 
love I chasten." Another angel would say, 
'' All things work together for good to 
them that love God." In still another 
sweet face the heavenly words are coming 
forth, '' Let not your heart be troubled ; 
believe also in Me. In my Father's house 
are many mansions. Where I am there 
shall ye be also." 

To-day my lonely room is vocal with such 
heavenly utterances. God's ways are not 
my ways, but they are infinitely better. The 
cloud is not so dense but love-rays shine 
through. In time the revealing " winds shall 
clear " away the dark and dreadful mystery. 
Kind words of sympathy steal into the 
shadowed room of suffering. If Christ 
does not come in visible form to our Beth- 
anys. He sends His faithful servants and 
handmaidens with words of warm, tender 
condolence. The fourteenth chapter of 



14 GOD'S LIGHT ON DARK CLOUDS. 

John never gleams with such a celestial 
brightness as when we read it under the 
cloud. No cloud can be big enough to 
shut out heaven if we keep the eye towards 
the Throne. And when we reach heaven 
and see the cloud from God's side, it will 
be blazing and beaming with the illumina- 
tions of His love. The Lamb which is in 
the midst of the throne shall be our Shep- 
herd, and shall guide us to the fountains of 
waters of life, and God shall wipe away 
every tear from our eyes. 

Brooklyn, Oct. 6, 1881. 




BURNING THE BARLEY-FIELD. 



A GREAT many precious spiritual truths 
lie concealed under the out-of-the-way 
passages of God's Word, like Wordsworth's 

" violet by a mossy stone, 
Half hidden from the eye." 

If we turn up a certain verse in the four- 
teenth chapter of the Second Book of 
Samuel, we shall find such a truth hidden 
under a historical incident. The incident 
is on this wise. Absalom, the artful aspir- 
ant to his father's throne, wishes to have 
an interviev/ with Joab, the field marshal 
of David's army. He sends for Joab to 
come to him, but Joab refuses. Finding 
that the obstinate old soldier pays no heed 



1 6 BURNING THE BARLEY-FIELD. 

to his urgent request, he practises a strata- 
gem. He says to one of his servants : *' See ! 
Joab's field is next to mine, and he hath 
barley there. Go and set it on fire ! '' And 
Absalom's servants set the field on fire. 
Then Joab arose and came to Absalom. 

Now, just as the shrewd young prince 
dealt with Joab in order to bring him unto 
him, so God employs a regimen of disci- 
pline very often in order to bring w^ayward 
hearts to himself. • Many a reader of this 
article may have had his barley-field set on 
fire ; there are some even now whose fields 
are wrapped in flames or are covered with 
the ashes of extinguished hopes. With 
backsliders this method is often God's last 
resort. He sees that the wayward wander- 
ers care more for their earthly possessions 
than they do for his honor or his service. 
So he touches them in the tenderest spot, 
and sweeps away the objects they love too 
well. They have become idolaters, and he 
sternly dashes their idols to atoms. 



BURNING THE BARLEY-FIELD^ I 7 

There was a time when our nation had 
shamefully backslidden from the funda- 
mental principles of our Declaration of 
Independence. The value of cotton crops 
outweighed the value of liberty. The right- 
eous God saw that we cared more for the 
perpetuity of our Union and our prosperity 
than we did for the rights of four millions 
of his children. But when the first flash 
of a national conflagration lighted up the 
Southern sky, then millions of aft'righted 
voices began to cry out, *^ Why is our 
magnificent Union given to the flames?'' 
We could sleep while God's law of right 
was trampled under foot ; but when the 
national peace and power and pride were 
trodden down by the same remorseless 
heel, we awoke, as a man awakes at the 
cry of ^^ fire " under his own roof-tree. 
God saw what we prized most, and He 
touched that. 

In like manner, many an individual sin- 
ner finds his way to Christ by the light of 



1 8 BURNING THE BARLEY-FIELD. 

a burning barley-field. Sometimes the 
awakening comes in the shape of a bodily- 
chastisement. The impenitent heart has 
never been moved by sermons and never 
been brought to repentance by any sense 
of gratitude for God's mercies. So the All- 
wise One sends a sharp attack of sickness, 
in order to reach the diseased and hardened 
heart. The sinner is laid on his back. He 
is brought to the very verge of eternity. 
As a past life of transgression rises before 
his conscience, and the terrors of a wrath to 
come seize upon him, he cries out, '' God, 
be merciful to me a sinner ! " When he 
recovers his health, and goes back into a 
world that looks very different to him now, 
his grateful song is, '' It was good for me to 
have been afflicted, for I had gone astray ; 
my feet had v/ell nigh slipped." I honestly 
believe that many a sick-bed has delivered 
the sufferer from a bed in perdition. Pain 
often drives to prayer. The door that shuts 
a man out from the world shuts him in to 



BURNING THE BARLEY-FIELD. 1 9 

reflection, and finally into the ark of safety. 
" There it is," said a young man, as he 
pointed to a diseased limb, which was eat- 
ing away his life ; '' and a precious limb it 
has been to me. It took me away from a 
career of folly. Jt brought me to myself, 
and to this room of trial, where I have found 
Christ. I think it has brought me a great 
way on the road to heaven." It was the 
testimony of a Christian who had lost his 
eyesight, after a long confinement to a dark 
room, '' I could never see Jesus until I 
became blind." 

We sometimes wonder why God takes 
one of his ministers out of the pulpit and 
lays him on a bed of dangerous illness. It 
is to give the man a look over the vej^ge. He 
gets shorter views of life and of eternity. 
Three weeks on the couch of pain and peril 
teach him some things which he never 
learned in three years at a theological 
seminary. Sharp bodily affliction, even if 
it does not endanger life, is often a whole- 



20 BURNING THE BARLEY-FIELD. 

some process. Paul's thorn in the flesh, 
Robert Hall's excruciating pains, and Rich- 
ard Baxter's physical sufferings were a very 
expensive part of their education ; but they 
graduated with higher honor and a brighter 
crown. Fiery trials make golden Chris- 
tians. When the balsam-trees in God's 
garden are cut deep with the knife, they 
emit the sweetest gums." 

During the last five years a great many 
barley-fields have been consumed. Brother 

A had his fortune swept away in the 

commercial conflagration of 1873; but his 
heavenly hope was locked up in what was 
more fire-proof than any iron safe, and his 
Christian character came out like pure gold 
from the flames. One of the miost benevo- 
lent and useful Christian merchants in 
America has lately seen the flames of ruin 
go through his field of barley, and the earn- 
ings of an honest life are ashes ! He has an 
inheritance left yet which the Rothschilds 
could not buy ; and the very loss of his 



BURNING THE BARLEY-FIELD. 21 

stocks and '' securities " has led him to in- 
ventory afresh the blessed treasures which 
he has been laying up in heaven. So, from 
being a bankrupt, he finds that his best 
investments are untouched; and there has 
been no depreciation in his real estate, which 
lies very near to the everlasting throne. 

God often sees that a career of unbroken 
worldly prosperity is becoming very fatai 
to the soul. Therefore he puts the torch to 
the barley-field. Not only are the impen- 
itent thus dealt with, to bring them to 
consider their ways, but his own children 
are often put through a process which is 
marvellously improving to their graces, for 
a career of rapid success is seldom health- 
ful to piety. Very few even of Christ's 
choice ones can travel life's railway with 
perfect safety at forty miles an hour. The 
heated axle is very apt to snap, or else the 
engine flies the track of conformity to God 
and goes off the embankment. 

Prosperity brings out only a few of a 



22 BURNING THE BARLEY-FIELD. 

good man's graces ; it often brings out a 
great many secret lusts, and no little pride, 
and selfishness and forgetfulness of the 
Master. When a favorable wind strikes a 
vessel '' right aft," it only fills a portion of 
the sails ; when it veers round and strikes 
it " on the beam," then every inch of can- 
vas is reached. Good reader, if the Lord 
is so shifting the winds that they reach thy 
undeveloped graces of humility, and faith, 
and patience, and unselfish love, do not be 
alarmed. He does not mean to swamp 
thee, or send thee on a lee shore ; he only 
intends to bring thee into a ''better trim" 
and give thee a more abundant entrance 
into the desired haven. 

Count up all the w^orldly losses you have 
had, and see if you are not the gainer, if 
these losses have but sent you closer to 
your Saviour. You have less money, per- 
haps, but more enjoyment of the treasures 
you found at the cross. You are richer 
toward God. Perhaps there is a child the 



BURNING THE BARLEY-FIELD. 23 

less in that crib now empty, but there is 
a child the more in glory ; and when the 
Shepherd took your lamb He drew you 
nearer to Him and to the fold on high. Our 
loving God has a purpose in every trial. 
If any heart-broken reader of these lines 
is crying out, like Joab, '' Wherefore hast 
thou set my field on fire?" I beseech thee 
not to flee away from God in petulant 
despair. He is only burning' up thy bar- 
ley to bring thee closer to Himself. Let 
the flames light thee to the mercy-seat. 
The promises will read the brighter. It 
is better to lose the barley than to lose the 
blessincr. 




WEEPING AND WORKING. 



nr^HE smallest verse in the Bible is one 
"*■ of the largest and deepest in its 
heavenly pathos. Jesus wept. What mys- 
terious meanings may have lain behind, 
those tears, no one need try to fathom ; but, 
for one, I prefer to see in them the honest 
expression of grief for a friend who was 
dead, and of sympathy for two heart-broken 
women. Christ's power displayed at that 
sepulchre overwhelms me ; it was the 
power of a God. But His pity touches 
me most tenderly; it was the pity of a 
man. Those moistened eyes are my Elder 
Brother's. The sympathy that walked 
twenty miles to Bethany, that drew Him 
to those desolate women, that started the 



WEEPING AND WORKING. 2 5 

tears down His cheeks and choked His 
' voice with emotion, — that sympathy Hnks 
us to Him as the sharer and the bearer 
of our own sorrows. There is something 
vicarious in those tears, as there is in the 
precious blood shed on the cross a few 
days afterwards. His love seems to '' in- 
sert itself vicariously right into our sor- 
rows," and He takes the burden right into 
His own heart. 

But it was a practical sympathy. Had 
our Lord come to Bethany and taken the 
two bereaved sisters into their guest- 
chamber and had a '' good cry" with them, 
and then gone aw^ay and left Lazarus in 
his grave and them in their grief, it would 
have been all that our neighbors can do 
for us when we are in a house of bereave- 
ment. But it would not have been like 
Jesus. He did not come to Bethany 
simply to weep. He came there to work 
a marvellous miracle of love. He wept as 
a man ; He worked as the Lord of power 



26 WEEPING AND WORKING, 

and glory. He pitied first, and then 
helped. The same love that moistened 
His eyes moved His arm to burst open 
that tomb and bring the dead Lazarus to 
his feet. A few days afterwards He wept 
for sinners, and then v/rought out salvation 
for sinners by His own agonies on the cross. 
Is there no lesson for us in this? What are 
tears of sympathy worth if w^e refuse to lift 
a finger to help the suffering or to relieve 
distress? And what a mockery it is to 
weep over the erring and do nothing to save 
them ! Only when we ^^ bear one another's 
burdens " do we '' fulfil the law of Christ.'* 
There is another connection that weep- 
ing has with working. We relieve our own 
suffering hearts by turning the flood of grief 
upon some wheel of practical activity. An 
eminent minister of God who was under a 
peculiarly bitter trial once said to me, ^* If 
I could not study and preach and work to 
the very utmost, I should go crazy.*' The 
millstones grinding upon themselves soon 



WEEPING AND WORKING. 2/ 

wear themselves away to powder. But 
useful occupation is not only a tonic, it is 
a sedative to the troubled spirit. Instead 
of looking in upon our own griefs until we 
magnify them, we should rather look at 
the sorrows of others, in order to lighten 
and lessen them. 

The poor fisherman, in one of Sir Walter 
Scott's romances, says to the lady who 
comes to his cottage after the death of his 
child : *' You rich folk when ye are in 
trouble may sit wi' yer handkercher to 
yer een, but we puir bodies maun off to 
our work agen, even tho' our hearts are 
thumpin' like a hammer." If the poor fel- 
low had only known it, he was a great deal 
better off at his honest work than if he had 
been idly nursing his grief with the '* hand- 
kercher to his een." Some of the best 

• 

work ever done for the Master is v/rought by 
His servants when the ''hammer" of afflic- 
tion is not only beating away on the heart, 
but is breaking down selfishness and un- 



28 WEEPING AND WORKING. 

belief. When sorrow is allowed to settle 
in the soul, it often turns the soul into a 
stagnant fen of bitter waters, out of which 
sprout the rank rushes of self-will and un- 
belief and rebellion against God. If that 
same sorrow is turned outward into cur- 
rents of sympathy and beneficence, it be- 
comes a stream of blessings. A baptism 
of trial is often the best baptism for Christ's 
service. If tears drive us to toil, then toil 
will in turn drive away tears, and give us 
new and sacred satisfactions. When our 
blessed Saviour wept, it was on the eve 
of His mightiest works, once in raising 
the dead, and once in redeeming a dying 
world. Weeping and working may even 
blend profitably together ; for the chiefest 
of Christ's apostles tells us that during three 
busy years of his life he ceased not to warn 
perishing sinners, night and day, with tears. 

" Since Thou on earth hast wept. 
And sorrowed oft alone, 
If I must weep with Thee, 
My Lord, Thy will be done I *' 



SHORT VIEWS. 



\ MONG the manifold improvements 
•^ ^ in the Westminster Revision, we are 
happy to find that our Lord's discourse 
against sinful worrying is given in the right 
Enghsh. Our common version of the clos- 
ing portion of the sixth chapter of Matthew 
has always been very misleading to the 
average reader. Christ never commanded 
us to '^ take no thought for the morrow" ; 
such counsel would contradict common 
sense, . rational prudence, and other ex- 
plicit commands in the Bible. What our 
Lord so emphatically forbade was sinftd 
anxiety, or the overloading of to-day's 
work with worry about the day that has 
not yet come. The revisers have hit the 



30 SHORT VIEWS. 

nail exactly on the head by introducing 
the word ''anxious" into a half-dozen 
verses of that portion of the Sermon on 
the Mount. '' Be ye not anxious for your 
life what ye shall eat," &c. '' Which of 
you by being anxious can add one cubit 
to the measure of his life?" This whole 
remonstrance against borrowing trouble in 
advance is summed up in the happily 
translated sentence, — '' Be not therefore 
anxious for the morrow; for the morrow 
will be anxious for itself." 

We may be sure that our blessed Lord 
knew what was in man when He gave so 
much space in His sermon to this one tor- 
menting sin, and repeated six times over 
His entreaties to avoid it. Worry is not 
only a sin against God, it is a sin against 
ourselves. It sometimes amounts to a slow 
suicide. Thousands have shortened their 
lives by it, and millions have made their 
lives bitter by dropping this gall into 
their souls every day. Honest work very 



SHORT VIEWS. 31 

seldom hurts us ; it is worry that kills. I 
have a perfect right to ask God for a 
strength equal to the day, but I have no 
right to ask Him for one extra ounce of 
strength for to-morrow's burden. When 
to-morrow comes, grace will come with it, 
and sufficient for the tasks, the trials, or 
the troubles. God never has built a Chris- 
tian strong enough to stand the strain of 
present duties and all the tons of to-mor- 
row's duties and sufferings piled upon the 
top of them. Paul himself would have 
broken down. 

There is only one practical remedy for 
this deadly sin of anxiety, and that is to 
take short views. Faith is content to live 
^' from hand to mouth," enjoying each 
blessing from God as it comes. This per- 
verse spirit of w^orry runs off and gathers 
some anticipated troubles and throws them 
into the cup of mercies and turns them 
to vinegar. A bereaved parent sits down 
by the new-made grave of a beloved child 



32 SHORT VIEWS 

and sorrowfully says to herself, '' Well, I 
have only one more left, and one of these 
days he may go off to live in a home of 
his own, or he may be taken away ; and if 
he dies, my house will be desolate and 
my heart utterly broken." Now who gave 
that weeping mother permission to use 
that word ''if" ? Is not her trial sore 
enough now without overloading it with 
an imaginary trial? And if her strength 
breaks down, it will be simply because she 
is not satisfied with letting God afflict her ; 
she tortures herself with imagined afflic- 
tions of her own. If she would but take a 
short view, she would see a living child yet 
spared to her, to be loved and enjoyed 
and lived for. Then, instead of having two 
sorrows, she would have one great posses- 
sion to set over against a great loss ; her 
duty to the living would be not only a 
relief to her anguish, but the best tribute 
she could pay to the departed. 

That is a short view which only takes in 



SHORT VIEWS. 33 

immediate duty to be done, the immediate 
temptation to be met, and the immediate 
sorrow to be carried. My friend, if you 
have money enough to-day for your daily 
wants and something for God's treasury, 
don't torment yourself with the idea that 
you or yours may yet get into an alms- 
house. If your children cluster around 
your table, enjoy them, train them, trust 
them to God, without racking yourself with 
a dread that the little ones may some time 
be carried off by the scarlet fever, or the 
older ones may yet be ill married or may 
fall into disgrace. Faith carries present 
loads and meets present assaults and feeds 
on present promises, and commits the fu- 
ture to a faithful God. Its song is, — 

" Keep Thou my feet ; I do not ask to see 
The distant scene ; one step 's enough for me." 

We shall always take that one step more 
wisely and firmly and successfully if we 
keep our eye on that only. The man who 
3 



34 SHORT VIEWS, 

is climbing the Alps must not look too far 
ahead, or it will tire him ; he must not look 
back, or he gets dizzy; he has but to fol- 
low his guide, and set his foot on the right 
spot before him. This is the way you and 
I must let Christ lead, and have Him so 
close to us also that it will be but a short 
view to behold Him. Sometimes young 
Christians say to me, *' I am afraid to make 
a public confession of Christ, I may not 
hold out/' They have nothing to do with 
holding out ; it is simply their duty to hold 
on. When future trials and perils come, 
their Master will give them help for the 
hour, if they only make sure that they are 
His. The short view they need to take is 
a close, clear view of their own spiritual 
wants, and a distinct view of Jesus as ever 
at hand to meet those w^ants. If the fish- 
ermen of Galilee had worried themselves . 
over the hardships they were to encounter, 
they might have been frightened out of 
their apostleships and their eternal crowns. 



SHORT VIEWS. 35 

We ministers need to guard against this' 
malignant devil of ivorry. It torments one 
pastor with a dread lest, if he preach cer- 
' tain truths boldly, he may offend his rich 
pew-holders and drive them away. Let 
him take care of his conscience, and his 
Master will take care of him. Another 
is worried lest his cruse may run dry and 
his barrel fail. But his cruse has not yet 
run dry. Oh no, it is his faith that is run- 
ning low. Some of us, at the beginning 
of a year's work, are tempted to overload 
ourselves with the anticipation of how much 
we have to do ; we need not worry if we 
will only remember that during the whole 
year there will be only one working day, 
and that is — to-day. Sufficient to each 
day is the labor thereof.^ 

Once more we say — let us take short 
views. Let us not climb the high wall till 
we get to it, or fight the battle till it opens, 
or shed tears over sorrows that may 
never come, or lose the joys and blessings 



36 



SHORT VIEWS. 



that we have, by the sinful fear that God 
will take them away from us. We need all 
our strength and all the grace God can give 
us for to-day's burdens and to-day's battle. 
To-morrow belongs to our Heavenly 
Father: I would not know its secrets if I 
could. It is far better to know Whom we 
trust, and that He is able to keep all we 
commit to Him until the last great day. 








'^^w 



FLOWERS FROM THE TOMB OF JESUS. 



OUR LORD was crucified in the season 
of early flowers. During the month 
Nisan (or April) the winter rains made veg- 
etation leap forth into wondrous beauty. 
The gardens were brilliant with the crocus 
and the hyacinth, and the plains of Sharon 
were snowy with the w^hite narcissus. Jesus 
w^as buried in a rich man's garden, and no 
one can tell how many flowers and odorous 
vines had been planted by the gardener 
around Joseph's family tomb. The spices 
within and the plants without may have 
made the spot in which our dear Master 
slumbered exceeding fragrant 

That hallowed tomb was itself buried up 
centuries ago, and the very spot cannot be 



38 FLOWERS FROM THE TOMB OF JESUS. 

identified. But there are certain flowers of 
grace which will bloom upon the grave 
of Jesus to the end of time. Faith grows 
there in beautiful profusion. A sad com- 
pany of ignorant doubters were those disci- 
ples in regard to their Master's resurrection ; 
even when the three women came back from 
the sepulchre and pronounced it empty, 
and that they had seen the Saviour alive, 
some of the Apostles treated it as an '' idle 
tale and believed it not'' Thomas stood 
out until an actual sight of his Lord silenced 
his unbelief. From that day faith in Christ's 
victory over death has been a cardinal fea- 
ture in every Christian's creed. With it is 
linked that other faith that if Jesus rose 
again, so would every one who '' sleeps in 
Jesus " rise also from the dust. This peren- 
nial flower of faith, which blooms like cer- 
tain roses in all seasons, has been set out 
on innumerable graves all over our death- 
cursed world. It grows on the little mound 
that covers my dear boy ; I seem to see it 



FLOWERS PROM THE TOMB OF JESUS. 39 

all over among the hillocks of Green- 
wood. 

Hope is another fragrant flower that 
springs from the burial sod. On one leaf 
of the plant we read, '' I am the Resurrec- 
tion and the Life ; he that believeth in Me, 
though he were dead, j^^^ shall he live!' On 
another leaf is inscribed, '' Sorrow not as 
others that have no hope ; for if Jesus died 
and rose again, even so them also which 
sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him.'/ 
The expectation of every pastor, that he 
shall yet '' break ground '' and ascend with 
his flock, cheers his soul when he stands 
beside the grave in which his faithful ones 
are being laid, dust to dust. This hope 
is an anchor that has held many a poor 
heart-broken mother who has moistened 
her darling's resting place with her tears. 
To her Jesus draws nigh and says, '' Weep 
not; this child shall rise again." And so 
she tills that httle sacred soil until it is 
covered over with the blossoms of hope 



40 FLOWERS FROM THE TOMB OF JESUS. 

as thick as white Hhes of the. valley. The 
original seeds of this fair flower came from 
Christ's tomb in the garden. It grows best 
when it is watered by prayer. That is 
a desolate grave indeed over which there 
does not creep out a single sprig or blade 
of Hope ! 

Are these all the flowers which thrive in 
the hallowed mould in which Christ's suc- 
cessors lie? No! There is one modest 
lily called Resignation. Jesus Himself de- 
clared that it was better that He should 
have died, for He said that He '' ought to 
have suff*ered and to enter into His glory." 
His road to glory lay through the tomb, 
and so must ours. Never did our Lord set 
this world above the better world. He only 
brought three persons back to life (that 
we read of), and then only for a high and 
especial purpose to be gained. There is 
a legend that the first thing Lazarus said 
after his resurrection was, '^ Shall I have to 
die again?'' On being told that he must, 



FLOWERS FROM THE TOMB OF JESUS. 4 1 

it is said that he never smiled afterward. 
Truly, if some of the crowned ones in Par- 
adise were driven back to this sin-stained 
earth, they might well wear mourning for 
their own bereavement. To die is gain ! 
That is the sw^eet word wdiich I detect in 
every bud and leaf on the plant of Resig- 
nation. God hath better things in store 
for us; His will, not ours, be done. 

It may seem a strange place to set out 
the flower of Thankfulness; but that, too, 
grows and emits its sweetness from Christ's 
sepulchre and those of His followers. Paul, 
standing by that grave over which Jesus 
had triumphed, shouts aloud, '* Thanks be 
to God who giveth us the victory through 
Jesus Christ our Lord." His triumph over 
death is our trium.ph. Because He rose- 
and lives again, we shall live also. 

Not only on Easter Sabbaths are these 
flowers to be found on our Lord's emptied 
sepulchre, but every day, in every clime, 
wherever death hoUovv^s a grave, these 



42 FLOWERS FROM THE TOMB OF JESUS. 

precious plants of grace may be made to 
bloom, and to scatter their delicious per- 
fumes. Perhaps some sorrowing child of 
God may read these lines and inquire, 
'^ Where shall I go to find faith and hope, 
and resignation for yonder freshly piled 
mound over my dead?" We answer, Go 
to the tomb where Jesus vanquished death, 
— in the garden. 




TRUSTING GOD IN THE DARK. 



SOMETIMES we have an experience in 
life that seems hke walking through a 
long dark tunnel. The chilling air and the 
thick darkness make it hard walking, and 
the constant wonder is why w^e are com- 
pelled to tread so gloomy a path, while 
others are in the open day of health and 
happiness. We can only fix our eyes on 
the bright light at the end of the tunnel, 
and we comfort ourselves with the thought 
that every step we take brings us nearer to 
the joy and the rest that lie at the end of 
the way. Extinguish the light of heaven 
that gleams in the distance, and this tun- 
nel of trial would become a horrible tomb. 
Some of us are passing through just such 



44 TRUSTING GOD IN THE DARK. 

an experience now. We can adopt the 
plaintive language of the Psalmist and cry 
out: *^ Thy hand presseth us sore; as for 
the light of our eyes, it also is gone from 
us ; we are ready to halt, and our sorrow is 
continually before us." 

One of the most trying features of our 
trial is that we cannot discover the *^ why " 
or the '' wherefore " of our special afflic- 
tions. Our Heavenly Father did not con- 
sult us before the trial came, and He does 
not explain to us why He sent it. His 
ways are not our ways, nor His thoughts 
our thoughts ; nay, they are the very oppo- 
site. The mystery of the providence per- 
plexes and staggers us. For example, I 
open my daily journal, and read that the 
Bishop of Jerusalem, whom I left a few 
months ago in the prime of vigorous health 
and wide usefulness, is cut off in the midst 
of his days. All his preparatory training 
for his office by eighteen years of mission- 
ary life comes to naught. This very day I 



TRUSTING GOD IN THE DARK, 45 

am called for the sixth time in a few years 
to bury the dead from a certain Christian 
household. This time it is the head of the 
house that is taken, and the children are 
left to orphanage. Beside me now sits a 
mourning mother, whose aching heart can- 
not understand why a beloved child is 
snatched away when she seemed the most 
indispensable to the happiness of the home. 
Every week a pastor has to confront these 
mysteries in the dealings of a God of love. 
To the torturing question, '' Why does God 
lead me into this valley of the shadow of 
darkness?" we can only reply, ''Even so, 
Father, for so it seems good in Thy sight." 
We are brought into the tunnel, however 
we shrink back. There is no retreat; we 
have nothing left to us but to grasp the 
very Hand that brought us there and push 
forward. Like Bunyan's Pilgrim, w^e can 
only say, '' I see not but that my road to 
heaven heth through this very valley." 
Just in such trying hours it is that the 



46 TRUSTING GOD IN THE DARK. 

Adversary assails us most fiercely. He 
stirs up in our hearts bitter thoughts 
against God. He points us to the actual 
and realized loss, and tells us that heaven 
is utterly unseen, and no one comes back 
to assure us of its reality. And so he 
endeavors, with devilish suggestions, to 
blow out such lamps of divine promise as 
we have, to shatter every staff that we 
carry, and to make the pathway of trial 
more dark and desperate than before. 
This is not fancy; it is the actual trial to 
which the faith of thousands of God's peo- 
ple is at this moment subjected. Under 
these severe experiences more than one 
Christian has been sorely tempted to turn 
infidel, and to ^^ choose death rather than 
hfe." 

To my own mind there is only one solu- 
tion for these mysteries and only one sup- 
port for these days of terrible affliction. 
The only relief I can find is in the certainty 
that this life is not the end, but simply 



TRUSTING GOD IN THE DARK, 47 

the preparatory school for the real and the 
endless life that is beyond. The moment 
that I accept this truth fully and hold 
it firmly, I find solid ground for my feet 
and light for my sorrowing soul. Then 
T discover that the whole journey of the 
believer is ''portioned out" to him, and 
that the dark tunnel on the road is just 
as surely appointed wis.ely as is the most 
flowery mead or the happiest walk over 
the " Delectable Mountains." Nay, more. 
When we reach heaven, we may discover 
that the richest and deepest and most prof- 
itable experiences we had in this world 
were those which were gained in the very 
roads from which we shrank back with 
dread. The bitter cups we tried to push 
away contained the medicines we most 
needed. The hardest lessons that we learn 
are those which teach us the most and best 
fit us for service here and glory hereafter. 
It is the easiest thing in the world to obey 
God when He commands us to do what we 



48 . TRUSTING GOD IN THE DARK. 

like, and to trust Him when the path is all 
sunshine. The real victory of faith is to 
trust God in the dark and through the 
dark. Let us be assured of this, that, if 
ihe lesson and the rod are of His appointing, 
and that His all-wise love has engineered 
the deep tunnels of trial on the heaven- 
ward road, He will never desert us during 
the discipline. The vital thing for us is, 
not to deny and desert Him. 

Let us also keep in mind that the chief 
object of the discipline is to develop char- 
acter and to improve the graces of His 
children. Whom He loveth He chasteneth, 
and correcteth every son whom He receiv- 
eth. Every branch that beareth not fruit 
"W^ pi'tmeth it, that it may bring forth more 
fruit. '^ Why do you cut that pomegranate- 
bush so cruelly?'' said a gentleman to his 
gardener. The answer was, '' Because it is 
all running to useless leaves, and I want 
to make it bear!' Ah ! it is a keen knife 
that our Divine Gardener employs, and 



TRUSTING GOD IN THE DARK. 49 

He often severs the very heartstrings by 
His disciphne ; but '^ afterward it yieldeth 
peaceable fruit unto them that have been 
exercised thereby, even the fruit of right- 
eousness." God has a great many crucibles 
for His gold, where He may refine it. There 
is so much alloy of pride and self-will, or 
covetousness, or sinful idolatry in genuine 
Christians that they require the '* fining- 
pot" and the furnace. Sometimes pros- 
perity is tenfold more damaging to us than 
sharp adversity. A fit of sickness may do 
more for soul-health than years of bodily 
strength and comfort. 

To all my readers who are wondering 
why a loving God has subjected them so 
often to the furnace, my only answer is, that 
God owns yott and ine^ and He has a right to 
do with us just as He pleases. If He wants 
to keep His silver over a hot flame until He 
can see His own countenance reflected in 
the metal, then He has a right to do so. It 
is the Lord, it is my loving Teacher, it is 
4 



50 TRUSTING GOD IN THE DARK, 

my Heavenly Father ; let Him do what 
seemeth Him good. He will not lay on 
one stroke in cruelty, or a single one that 
He cannot give me grace to bear. Life's 
school-days and nights will soon be over. 
Pruning-time will soon be ended. The 
crucibles will not be needed in heaven. 

So, to all my fellow-sufferers who are 
threading their way through the tunnels of 
trial, I would say : Tighten your loins with 
the promises, and keep the strong staff ot 
faith well in hand. Trust God in the dark. 
We are safer with Him in the dark than 
without Him in the sunshine. He will not 
suffer thy foot to stumble. His rod and 
His staff never break. Why He brought 
us here we know not now, but we shall 
know hereafter. At the end of the gloomy 
passage beams the heavenly light. Then 
comes the exceeding and eternal weight 
of glory! 



GOD'S SCHOOL, AND ITS LESSONS. 



A CERTAIN gray-haired pupil in the 
-^^ school of his Heavenly Father once 
said, '' O God, Thou hast tatigJit me 
from my youth." His experience in that 
school had been very remarkable, from his 
early beginnings among the sheep-cotes 
of Bethlehem. Constantly seeking instruc- 
tion, he had prayed, '' Teach me Thy stat- 
utes," '' Teach me Thy way," ** Teach me 
to do Thy will." Sharp schooling had he 
received in those days of humiliation when 
a traitor-son drove him out of Jerusalem. 
Terrible punishment did he bring upon 
himself once when '* lust brought forth sin, 
and sin brought forth death," in the crime 
against Uriah. But had David not been 



52 GOD'S SCHOOL, AND ITS LESSONS, 

under the instruction and discipline of the 
Holy Spirit, we never would have had 
many of the richest, profoundest, and 
most majestic Psalms, — many of their 
most piercing wails and of their most 
jubilant thankgsivings. 

That same school in which David was a 
pupil nearly thirty centuries ago is open 
yet. The term-time is as long as life lasts. 
It has its recreations and its rewards and 
its medals of honor, but no vacations. 
School is never ^^ out" until death comes 
to the door and beckons the pupil away. 
And oh ! how happy many a scholar has 
been when the messenger has said to his 
heart, '^ Now, my child, you have learned 
the hard lessons, and have finished your 
course; now you may come home T 

Of this wonderful school God Himself 
is the Principal or Superintendent. The 
supreme purpose of it is to form character 
and to fit the immortal soul for the after- 
life of eternity. If there is no immortality 



GOD'S SCHOOL, AND ITS LESSONS. 53 

of being, and if ''death ends all," then this 
world is an utter failure, and what we call 
Providence becomes an unintelligible jar- 
gon. The moment we recognize the fact 
that this life is only a training-school to fit 
us for a coming world, that the Bible is its 
infallible text-book and the Holy Spirit 
its instructor and the Lord of glory its 
all-wise and all-loving Head, then dark 
things become light, seemingly crooked 
things become straight, and m^teries 
become plain. If JUmn^only a scholar, I 
must submit tolH|^^^K)r m5;^^|^orr||^-j 
tion, and remember^lWio hath af 
If I am only a scholar, I must spe! 
hard lessons and submit to the sharp tasks, 
even though the pages of my diary be 
often blotted with tears; the things that 
I understand not now, I '' shall know here- 
after," when I have graduated into heaven. 
My Divine Teacher seems to have two 
great methods in this earthly school of His, 
— instruction and discipline. I am utterly 




54 GOD'S SCHOOL, AND ITS LESSONS. 

ignorant and terribly wayward, therefore I 
need both ; and they often blend together. 
Part of my instruction I get from His won- 
drous Word, and it is very inspiring and 
fascinating. A part I receive from the 
Holy Spirit's work, and it is very sanctify- 
ing. But no part of our schooling costs 
so dearly or yields such gracious fruits as 
the process of chastisement. The most 
famous teacher in Philadelphia, in his day, 
once said to a rich, indulgent father, '' You 
must take your b^ out of my school if 
VDn ar e.ji^o t willii^ to have me chastise 
^nd the schobl too will be ruined 
no discipline!' 
5ur Heavenly Teacher conducts His 
training-school for the very salvation of 
His scholars, and thus for His own honor 
and glory. The very word '^ disciple " 
(^discipubis) signifies a little scholar. The 
first essential to discipleship of the Lord 
Jesus was the willingness to deny self and 
to bear a cross at His bidding. That prin- 




GOD'S SCHOOL, AND ITS LESSONS. 55 

ciple runs through all the deepest, richest 
Christian experience, and will do so, I 
suppose, to the end of time. Often when 
the hard lesson starts the tears, and the 
aching heart cries out in anguish, the hand 
of the dear Master points up to the words : 
*' As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten : 
be zealous therefore, and repent." /' Whom 
the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and 
scourgeth every son whom He receiveth. 
. . . No chastening for the present seemeth 
to be joyous, but grievous : nevertheless 
afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of 
righteousness." It is the '^ afterward " that 
justifies the rod and reconciles us' 
stroke. Grand old Richard Baxter" 
claimed after a life of hard toil and con- 
stant suffering, '' O God, I thank Thee for 
a bodily discipline of eight and fifty years." 
Paul was indulging in no hypocritical cant 
when he said, '' I rejoice in tribulation." 
God's ripest and most royal scholars are 
made such by an expensive education. 




56 GOD'S SCHOOL, AND ITS LESSONS. 

His brightest gold comes out of the hot- 
test furnace. 

In this school of grace He employs many 
tutors. Sometimes He employs Poverty, 
which does for the soul what it did for the 
minds of such hard-faring youths as Hugh 
Miller and James A. Garfield, it sinews 
the strength and develops force. More 
than one Christian who was getting too 
prosperous for his spiritual good has been 
turned over to this severe tutor, and he 
has sent him down to an humbler bench. 
As the purse was emptied, the soul grew 
richer in humility, and began to bear the 
ft^uits of the Spirit. 

Another of God's tutors is Disappoint- 
ment; and some of the best lessons in life 
are taught us by that stern-visaged school- 
master. One of his lessons is that this 
world was not made solely for us, and our 
loss is often another man's gain. A 
second lesson is that our losses are often 
the very richest blessings. We had ** de- 



GOD'S SCHOOL, AND ITS LESSONS. 5/ 

vised a way '' for ourselves, and it would 
have led to certain danger. God could not 
have sent a severer judgment on us than 
to let us have our own way ; so He sent 
disappointment to drive us back. We 
cried out bitterly at first, but by and by we 
saw what we had escaped, and blessed the 
Hand that had smitten us in the face. If I 
ever reach heaven, I shall feel like rearing 
a monument there of gratitude to the stern- 
visaged old tutor who so often helped me 
on by putting me back, and stripped me 
that I might travel heavenward the lighter 
and the freer. 

Ah, brethren, this is a marvellous 
school which Divine Wisdom has opened, 
and a Father's love is superintending ! 
He never spares the rod when the child is 
in danger of being spoiled. His pruning- 
knife cuts deep, but the clusters of grapes 
are all the larger and the sweeter. When 
Michael Angelo saw a block of marble 
lying in the dirt, he said, ''There is an 



58 GOD'S SCHOOL, AND ITS LESSONS. 

angel in that marble, and I will bring it 
out." His hammer and chisel struck hard 
and deep, till the angel came forth. God's 
hammer of trial, blow on blow, brings out 
such angels as Faith, and sweet-visaged 
Peace, and strong-limbed Patience, and 
Sympathy, and the Love that has the like- 
ness of Jesus Christ. 

This school of God will soon close for 
us ; the term-time is shortening every 
hour. Let us not shirk a lesson, however 
hard, or wince under a rod of chastisement, 
however sore and heavy. The richer will 
be the crown if we endure to the end and 
graduate into glory. What a promotion 
will that be for hearts that so often ached, 
and for eyes that so often wept, and for 
the faith that so often bled under the blow, 
— to be lifted into the magnificent inher- 
itance of the saints in light ! 



GOD'S UNFOLDINGS. 



OITTING to-day in Christ's school (for 
^^ that is an essential idea of His Church), 
let me say a few words to my fellow- 
scholars. The meek and the teachable will 
He guide in His way. There is room for 
us all in that spot where Mary sat, — at the 
feet of Jesus. And the encouragement to 
us is : *' Call unto Me, and I will answer 
thee, and shew thee great and mighty things 
which thou knowest not." This does not 
mean everything, even though our hearts 
may ache to find out many mysteries. 
The '' secret things belong unto God." 
Over certain doors the inscription is af- 
fixed : " No admittance here." In heaven 



60 GOD'S UNFOLDINGS. 

we may know these things even as we are 
known; but now they are wisely hidden 
from our eyes. 

Yet our all-wise and loving God is con- 
stantly unfolding Himself to His earthly 
children. All scientific discovery is the 
passage from the unknown into the known ; 
every truth discovered is a fresh^ unfolding 
of the Creator. Very slowly, very grad- 
ually is this progress effected. Centuries 
passed away before Galileo found out the 
rotation of the earth, and Newton the law 
of gravitation. Other generations must 
roll by before man learned enough about 
God's laws of electro-magnetism to fashion 
the ocean telegraph. Yet these laws were 
all in existence in the days of Noah and 
Abraham; only they had not yet been 
unfolded. I once spent a night on Mount 
Righi, and there was nothing visible for 
a rood from my window. But when the 
morning broke, the icy crowns of the Jung- 
frau and the Schreckhorn began to glitter 



GOD'S UNFOLDINGS. 6 1 

in the early beams. They had been there 
all the night, waiting for the unfoldings of 
the dawn. Even so have all God's laws 
of the material universe and all His pur- 
poses of redeeming mercy through Jesus 
Christ been in existence from the begin- 
ning. They only waited for the dayspring 
of discovery. And one of the most de- 
lightful occupations of a devout mind is 
to watch the unfoldings of God, and to 
drink in new truths as He gradually reveals 
them. 

The more closely I study my Bible, the 
more I detect a steady progress of divine 
doctrine, from the first line of Genesis to 
the closing grandeur of the Apocalypse. 
That little altar of turf on which Abel lays 
his lamb points onward to Calvary. The 
whole Jewish dispensation goes on step by 
step until the Messiah comes. Then I find 
four sections of the Book which photograph 
the life of Jesus to me, each one presenting 
some particular view of my Saviour's face 



62 GOD'S UNFOLDINGS. 

and footsteps, and miracles and teachings. 
Calvary and the resurrection only prepare 
the way for the descent of the Holy Spirit. 
Then comes the visible manifestation of the 
Gospel in the conversion and organization 
of the Primitive Church. Peter's tongue, 
and Paul's brain, and John's heart, and Dor- 
cas's needle all get into motion. These new 
converts require spiritual instruction, and 
the whole series of inspired epistles are 
produced. The man or the minister who 
asserts that the writings of the four evan- 
gelists are *' Bible enough for him," and 
that the epistles of Paul are only excel- 
lent surplusage, worthy of small attention, 
simply writes himself down an ignoramus. 
There is as veritable an unfolding of heav- 
enly truth in the eighth chapter to the 
Romans as in the Sermon on the Mount. 
And when the laws of our spiritual life have 
been unfolded in the inspired epistles of 
Paul, John, Peter, and James, then the 
magnificent panorama of the Apocalypse 



GOD'S UNFOLDINGS. 63 

IS unrolled, and we get a glimpse of Christ's 
final triumphs and the glory of His celestial 
kingdom. After John lays down his pen, 
History takes up hers, and carries us on 
through the martyrdoms of saints, and the 
councils, and the conflicts, and the Refor- 
mation period, and the inauguration of 
modern missions to the nations who sit in 
darkness. At the foot of every page she 
writes, ''The earth is the Lord's, and the 
fulness thereof." 

In no direction do we behold more won- 
derful unfoldings of God than in what we 
call His Providence. This is a department 
of God's school in which we are learning 
fresh lessons every day. In Providence, 
divine wisdom is married to divine love. 
All things work together for good to them 
who love God and trust Him. The sceptic 
jeers at this, but the trusting Christian 
knows it from actual experience. It is 
often a dear-bought experience, for some 
of God's truths are knocked into us by 



64 GOD'S UNFOLDINGS. 

hard blows, and some lessons are spelled 
out through eyes cleansed with tears. 
Our perverse mistake is that we demand 
that God shall explain Himself at every 
step, instead of waiting for Him to unfold 
His intricate purposes at His own time and 

in His own way. Why A is set up and 

good Brother B (who seems equally 

deserving) is cast down ; why the only 
little crib in one Christian home is emp- 
tied by death, and the nursery in another 
home is full of happy voices ; why one 
good enterprise prospers and another one 
is wrecked, — all such perplexing puzzles 
shake terribly the faith that is not well 
grounded on the Rock. 

To all these pitiable outcries the calm 
answer of our Heavenly Father is : '' Be still, 
and know that I am God. I lead the blind 
by a way they know not. What I do 
thou knowest not now, but thou shalt 
know hereafter.'' These are the voices of 
love which come to us from behind the 



GOD'S UNFOLDINGS. 6$ 

cloud. If we wait patiently, the cloud will 
break away or part asunder, and our eyes 
will behold the Rainbow of Mercy over- 
arching the Throne. Twenty years ago, 
on a day of thick fog and storm, I as- 
cended Mount Washington by the old 
bridle-path. Over the slippery boulders 
we picked our toilsome way, unable to see 
anything but our sure-footed horse and our 
guide. A sulky company were we when 
we reached the '^ Tip-top House." But 
presently a strong wind swept away the 
banks of mist, and revealed the magnificent 
landscape from the mountain's base to the 
great wide sea. As the wonderful vision 
unfolded itself to our delighted eyes, we 
could mark the pathway by which we had 
been led up to that mount of discovery. 
Tenfold more delightful was the outlook 
because we had gained it by such hard 
toil and it had been so long hidden from 
our sight. 

That day*s experience was a sermon to 
5 



66 GOD'S UNFOLDINGS. 

my soul. It taught me afresh just how a 
believer must leave God to order his foot- 
steps, and how he must wait for God to 
unfold the hidden purposes of His love. 
Faith's stairways are steep and slippery. 
They can only be climbed by a sure foot 
and a steady hold on the Unseen Hand. 
In the hard clamber we are often thrown 
down on our knees. Cry as loudly as we 
may in the driving mist for '' more light," 
we do not receive any other answer than 
this: ''Fear not! Only trust!'' If we 
unloose our hold on God's hand for an 
instant, we go over the precipice. But the 
more tightly we cling, the steadier we walk ; 
the more willing we are to be humbled, the 
more certain are w^e to get upward ; the 
more crosses we bear for Christ, the lighter 
v/ill be our hearts ; and by and by we 
shall reach that gate of pearl, the opening 
of which will unfold to us the everlast- 
ing flood of glory. These are among 
the thoughts which came into my mind 



GOD'S l/NFOLDINGS. 



67 



as I have sat to-day in Christ's school, 
while some of the scholars around me have 
been singing ; but, alas ! some others are 
sobbing and weeping. 




CHRIST SHEPHERDING HIS FLOCK. 



/^NE of the most beautiful improve- 
^-^ ments of the new Revision of the Tes- 
tament is that which makes the seventeenth 
verse of the seventh chapter of the Revela- 
tion to read thus : *' The Lamb which is in 
the midst of the throne shall be their Shep- 
herdy and shall guide them unto fountains 
of waters of life." This carries on into the 
heavenly world one of the most tender and 
profound relations which Jesus bears to 
His redeemed followers. To us, in our 
land and times, this Oriental figure loses 
much of the vividness that it has to one 
who visits Palestine and sees a Judaean shep- 
herd among his flock. He is the master 
of a household of sheep, — as much at- 



CHRIST SHEPHERDING HIS FLOCK, 69 

tached to his ^^^cy friends as daily inter- 
course and nightly watchings and personal 
exposures for them could make him. He 
searches out fresh pasturage for them ; if 
a sheep is caught in a thicket, he hastens 
to rescue it ; if a lamb falls into a swollen 
torrent, he is at hand to lift it out ; if a 
wild beast shows himself at night near the 
sleeping flock, the shepherd seizes club 
or crook and gives him battle. Not only 
the savage beast, but the Bedouin rob- 
ber must sometimes be encountered. Dr. 
Thomson, in his '' Land and Book," says 
that one faithful fellow, between Tabor and 
Tiberias, instead of fleeing, actually fought 
three Bedouins, until he was hacked to 
pieces with their khanjars, and died among 
the sheep he was defending. 

'' I am the Good Shepherd. I lay down 
My life for the sheep." This is the supreme 
act of His devotion to His flock. To ana- 
lyze the theology of the Atonement is for 
most believers as bootless as an attempt 



70 CHRIST SHEPHERDING HIS FLOCK, 

to analyze the maternal feeling before a 
mother who has just given the parting kiss 
to a dying daughter. The Christian's 
heart understands the Atonement better 
than the Christian's head. It is a difficult 
doctrine for the brain, but a sweet and 
simple one to the affections. Jonathan 
Edwards himself could not apprehend the 
Atonement one whit more clearly or feel 
it more intensely than the Dairyman's 
Daughter, when she sang to herself, — 

" How glorious was the grace 

When Christ sustained the stroke ! 
His life and blood the Shepherd pays, 
A ransom for the flock/' 

True faith simply believes what Jesus said, 
and rests implicitly on what Jesus did for 
us and will do for us to the end. This is 
the core of my practical theology, and so 
it is w^ith millions of others. All we were 
but sheep going astray, and God hath laid 
on Him, the Divine Shepherd, the iniqui- 
ties of us all. This tells the whole story as 



CHRIST SHEPHERDING HIS FLOCK. 7 1 

to the ground of my hope for salvation ; 
this, too, estabHshes such a relation between 
me and my Shepherd, that I am under 
supreme obligation to follow Him whither- 
soever He leadeth. If we ever expect to 
be guided by Him to fountains of w^aters 
of life in heaven, w^e must learn here to 
submit to His guidance completely. 

Three things our beloved Shepherd 
assures us. The first one is, " I know. Mine 
own sheep/* He does not recognize them 
by any church-mark, for some persons 
may hide an unbelieving, unrenewed heart 
beneath a false profession; others, who 
never have enrolled themselves in any visi- 
ble church-membership, may belong to the 
blood-bought flock. Jesus recognized the 
penitent sinner through her tears as dis- 
tinctly as He saw through Judas behind his 
treacherous kiss. It is a precious thought 
to a true believer, however obscure in lot or 
however overlooked or misunderstood by 
others, — ** My Master knows me. He has 



72 CHRIST SHEPHERDING HIS FLOCK, 

me on His heart. He is a brother to my 
griefs. He knows what pasture I require ; 
yes, and He understands when I need the 
chastising stroke. He detects my sins ; 
therefore let me be watchful against temp- 
tation. He sees all my tears or my heart- 
aches ; therefore let me be cheerful under 
sharp trials." 

The second thing our Shepherd assures 
us is : *^ Mine own know Me." This knowl- 
edge is gained by a sacred instinct. His 
own know Him by the witness of the 
Spirit that witnesseth with their spirits. 
How do I know my mother? By some- 
body else's description of her, by her 
picture, by an analysis of her mental qual- 
ities? No; I know her by the instincts 
of love. I have tested her sweet fidelities. 
I believe in her both for what she is to 
me and what she has done for me. The 
sincere Christian has a heart-knowledge 
which is gained by being sought out by 
the Shepherd, saved by the Shepherd, and 



CHRIST SHEPHERDING HIS FLOCK. 73 

by trusting and following the Shepherd. 
Of this experimental knowledge no scoffer 
can outwit him and no enemy can rob him. 
He has heard Christ's voice when He 
'' calleth His own sheep by name and lead- 
eth them out." No one can counterfeit 
that voice. Sometimes in Palestine or 
Syria a stranger will try to mimic the shep- 
herd's call ; but the flock pay no heed to 
it. As soon as the genuine voice is heard 
every head is up and the flock is in motion. 
The third thing that Jesus assures us is, 
that ^' He goeth before His sheep, and they 
follow Him." Ah, what pathways of trial 
He sometimes appoints to us ! Never has 
He promised us an easy road or a smooth 
road, or such a road as our selfishness may 
select. He never consents that the flock 
shall decide as to the lot in which they 
shall be pastured, or over what steep hills 
He shall conduct them, or through what 
valleys of the death-shade they shall walk, 
listening to His voice through the dark. 



74 CHRIST SHEPHERDING HIS FLOCK. 

More than once faith stumbles and falls, 
but He lifts up and restores. Sometimes 
the burden breaks us down ; but He says 
tenderly, '' Cast that burden on Me." 
Sometimes we cry out in anguish for some 
lost treasure of heart and home ; but His 
firm reply is, '' Your treasure I will take 
care of. FOLLOW Me." Whom he loves 
He chastens, and in proportii^n to the love 
is the discipline. The trial that tests 
graces and purifies character must be some- 
thing more than a pin-scratch. It must cut 
deep, it must try us ; and sharply too, or 
it does not deserve the name. It is hard 
to be poor while others prosper ; it is hard 
to lie still and suffer while godless mirth 
goes laughing by the door; it is hard to 
lose our only wee lamb while our neigh- 
bor's fireside is surrounded by a group of 
rosy-cheeked children ; it is hard to drink 
the very cup that we prayed might pass 
from us : but the loving Shepherd comes 
very near at such times, and puts His arm 



CHRIST SHEPHERDING HIS FLOCK. 75 

about US and says : '* I know Mine own, 
and Mine own must trust Me. If Mine, 
then an heir to all I have. Where I am, 
there thou shalt be ; let not thy heart be 
troubled. What is poverty, or failure, or 
sickness, or bereavement to thee? Folloiv 
Me. If thy feet are sore, the green pas- 
tures will be all the softer by and by. If 
thy cross is heavy, I have borne a heavier 
one. Let Me share this with thee. Shall 
the disciple be above his Master? Shall 
the sheep fare better than the Shepherd?" 
And so through every step in life the 
Shepherd offers to guide us, if we will but 
hear His voice and follow Him. He never 
promises us smooth paths, but He does 
promise safe ones. When we obey His 
voice, we may often be called to severe 
toils and self-denials, to encounter opposi- 
tion and to perform services of love to the 
unlovable and the thankless ; but we shall 
never be called to sacrifice a principle or 
commit a sin. Our Shepherd will never 



*j6 CHRIST SHEPHERDING HIS FLOCK. 

lead us to a precipice of error or into a 
quagmire of doubt. He will never lead 
us into sensual temptations or up dizzy 
heights of vain-glory. If we follow Him 
we may find the steepest cliff a '^ path of 
pleasantness" and the lowest vale of humil- 
iation a highway to peace. Brethren of the 
flock, we may have some hard climbing 
yet before we reach heaven. Let us keep 
close to the Shepherd and take short views. 
If we look down, we may get dizzy ; if we 
look too far on, we may get discouraged. 
With steady grasp on the Great Shepherd, 
let our hearts continually pray, — 

" Keep thou my feet ; I do not ask to see 
The distant scene ; one step 's enough for me." 




THE EVERLASTING ARMS. 



ONE of the sweetest passages in the 
Bible is this one : '' Underneath are , 
the everlasting arms." It is not often 
preached from ; perhaps because it is felt 
to be so much richer and more touching 
than anything we ministers can say about it. 
But what a vivid idea it gives of the Divine 
support ! The first idea of infancy is of 
resting in arms which maternal love never 
allows to become weary. Sick-room ex- 
periences confirm the impression when we 
have seen a feeble mother or sister lifted 
from the bed of pain by the stronger ones 
of the household. In the case of our 
Heavenly Father, the arms are felt, but not 
seen. The invisible secret support comes 



78 THE EVERLASTING ARMS, 

to the soul in its hours of weakness or 
trouble ; for God knoweth our feebleness, 
He remembereth that we are dust. 

We often sink very low under the weight 
of sorrows. Sudden disappointments can 
carry us, in an hour, from the heights down 
to the very depths. Props that we leaned 
upon are stricken away. What God means 
by it very often is just to bring us down to 
*' the everlasting arms.'' We did not feel 
our need of them before. We were *' mak- 
ing flesh our arm," and relying on human 
comforts or resources. When my little boy 
dashes off to his play, brimful of glee, he 
does not stop to think much about his pa- 
rents ; but let him be taken suddenly sick, 
or an accident befall him, his first thought 
is to go to his mother. God often lays His 
hand heavily upon us to remind us that 
we have a Father. When my neighbor 

A broke in business, and twenty-four 

hours made him a bankrupt, he came home, 
saying to himself, ^' Well, my money is 



THE EVERLASTING ARMS, 79 

gone, but Jesus is left." He did not 
merely come down to '^ hard pan," he came 
to something far more soHd, — to the ever- 
lasting arms. When another friend laid her 
beautiful boy in his coffin, after the scarlet- 
fever had done its worst, she laid her own 
sorrowful heart upon the everlasting arms. 
The dear little sleeper was there already. 
The Shepherd had His lamb. 

There is something about deep sorrow 
that tends to wake up the ^/^//^^-feeling in all 
of us. A man of giant intellect becomes 
like a little child when a great grief smites 
him, or wdien a grave opens beneath his 
bedroom or his fireside. I have seen a 
stout sailor, who laughed at the tempest, 
come home when he was sick, and let his 
old mother nurse him as if he were a baby. 
He was willing to lean on the arms that had 
never failed him. So a Christian in the 
time of trouble is brought to this child- 
feeling. He wants to lean somew^iere, to 
talk to somebody, to have somebody love 



80 THE EVERLASTING ARMS. 

him and hold him up. His extremity be- 
comes God's opportunity. Then his hum- 
bled, broken spirit cries out, — 

*' O Lord, a little helpless child 

Comes to Thee this day for rest; 
Take me, fold me in Thy arms, 
Hold my head upon Thy breast." 

One great purpose in all affliction is to 
bring us down to the everlasting arms. 
What new strength and peace it gives us to 
feel them underneath us ! We know that, 
far as we may have sunk, we cannot go any 
farther. Those mighty arms can not only 
hold us, they can lift us up. They can 
carry us along. Faith, in its essence, is 
simply a resting on the everlasting arms. 
It is trusting them, and not our own weak- 
ness. The sublime act of Jesus as our Re- 
deemer was to descend to the lowest depths 
of human depravity and guilt, and to bring 
up His redeemed ones from that horrible 
pit in His loving arms. Faith is just the 
clinging to those arms, and nothing more. 



THE EVERLASTING ARMS, 8 1 

This first lesson in conversion is to be 
practised and repeated all through the sub- 
sequent Christian life. To endeavor to lift 
our own souls by our own strength, is as 
absurd as to attempt to lift our bodies by 
grasping hold of our own clothes. The 
lift must come from God. Faith cries out, 
'' O my Lord, Thou hast a mighty arm ; 
hold me up." The response from heaven 
is, '' I have found thee ; Mine arm shall 
strengthen thee ; on My arm shalt thou 
trust.'' 

Here lies the very core of the doctrine of 
'' Assurance." It simply means that I can 
feel, and every Christian believer can feel 
perfectly sure that the everlasting arms will 
never break and never fail us. I am not 
so sure that in some moment of wayward- 
ness, or pride, or self-sufficiency, I may not 
forsake those arms, and trust to my ow^n 
wretched weakness. Then the curse which 
God has pronounced on those who depart 
from Him and '' make flesh their arm " 
6 \ 



82 THE EVERLASTING ARMS. 

is certain to come upon me. I learn from 
bitter experience what a pitiable object 
even a Christian can be when he has for- 
saken the Living Fountain, and has nothing 
left but his own broken cistern. God's 
Word is full of precious encouragement 
to faith, but it contains terrible warnings 
against presumption and self-confidence. 
And while Presumption is swinging on its 
spider's web over the perilous precipice, 
Faith calmly says, — 

" All my trust on Thee is stayed, 
All my help from Thee I bring." 

While Unbelief is floundering through 
the darkness, or sinking in the waves of 
despair, Faith triumphantly sings, — 

" Safe in the arms of Jesus, 
Safe on His gentle breast, 
Here, by His love o'ershadowed, 
Sweetly my soul doth rest." 

This is the theology for times of tempta- 
tion. Such times are sure to come. They 



THE EVERLASTING ARMS, 83 

are the testing processes. A late Sunday's 
equinoctial gale tested every tree in the 
forest; only the rotten ones came down. 
When we read or hear how some professed 
Christian has turned defaulter, or lapsed 
into drunkenness, or slipped from the com- 
munion-table into open disgrace, it simply 
means that a human arm has broken. The 
man had forsaken the everlasting arms. 
David did it once, and fell. Daniel did not 
do it, and he stood. "' The Lord knoweth 
how to deliver the godly out of tempta- 
tions." 

This is a precious theology, this theol- 
ogy of trust, for the sick-room. We called 
in this week to visit one of Christ's suffer- 
ing flock. We talked for a time about the 
ordinary consolations for such cases as 
hers. Presently we said, ^' There is a sweet 
text that has been running in our mind for 
days past : it is this, ^ Underneath are the 
everlasting arms.' " The tears came in a 
moment; that precious passage went to 



84 



THE EVERLASTING ARMS. 



the right spot; it did good hke a medi- 
cine ; and our suffering friend lay more 
comfortable on that bed of pain from feel- 
ing that underneath her were the everlast- 
ing arms. Reader, may they be under thy 
head in the dying hour ! 




WORDS FOR THE WEARY. 



/^PENING into one of those rich chap- 
^-^ ters of Isaiah, that are as full of nour- 
ishment as a wheat-field, our eye lighted 
upon this passage : ^' The Lord God hath 
given me the tongue of the learned, that I 
should know how to speak a word in season 
to him that is weary/' This set us to think- 
ing about the resl/ulness of God's Word 
and of Christ's supporting grace. A very 
different thing is this from dreamy indo- 
lence. God abhors the idle man as a 
monster, and laziness as a cardinal sin. 
But rest is not only refreshing, but invigo- 
rating. The farmer's noonday hour under 
the shady tree refits him for the hot after- 
noon's toil in the harvest-field. Nothing 



86 WOJ^DS FOR THE WEARY, 

fits an army for battle like a good night's 
sleep and a full morning meal. If some 
'* terrible toilers " would oftener halt and 
rest, they would live the longer. 

All around us are multitudes of weary 
people. They are tired out with life's daily 
battle, with bearing the heat and burden of 
the day. Some carry a great load of care 
as to how they shall make both ends meet, 
and how they shall ^^ foot " the bills for 
rent, food, and raiment. Others are worn 
out with anxieties. A burden of spiritual 
despondency weighs down " Brother Little- 
Faith " and '' Mrs. Much-Afraid." Another 
one has grown tired of waiting for success 
in his labors, and is tempted to throw down 
his seed-bag and sickle in sheer despair. 
Others still are weary of waiting for recog- 
nized answers to prayer. 

For all these tired and burdened hearts 
Jesus, the relief-bringer, has His word in 
season. To the Christian with a small 
purse He says : '' Your life consisteth not 



WOI^DS FOR THE WEARY. 87 

in the abundance of things ye possess. I 
counsel thee to buy of Me gold tried in the 
fire, that thou mayest be rich. At My right 
hand are treasures for evermore." Only 
think how rich a man is who has a clean 
conscience here and heaven hereafter ! To 
the doubting and desponding Jesus says: 
'' Fear not, little flock ; for it is my Father's 
good pleasure to give you the kingdom." 
There is a wonderful restfulness for worried 
hearts in this single assurance, '^ Lo, I am 
with you alway." This may be called 
Christ's richest and sweetest promise. The 
believer w^ho lives on that promise can often 
sing, — 

" I am never lonely 

While Jesus standeth by ; 
His presence always cheers me, 
I know that He is nigh. 

" Friendless ? No, not friendless, 
For Jesus is my friend ; 
I change, but He remaineth 
A Brother to the end. 



88 WORDS FOR THE WEARY. 

" Tired ? No, not tired ; 

While leaning on His breast, 
My soul hath full enjoyment 
Of His eternal rest." 

The most common cause of weariness is 
the attempt to carry an overload of care. 
And this is not a wise forethought for the 
future or a proper providence for hfe's 
** rainy day." It is sheer worry. The word 
in season for such overloaded Christians, 
who toil along life's highway like jaded 
pack-horses, is this: '' Cast thy burden on 
the Lord, and He shall sustain thee." If 
we will only drop everything that is sinful 
and superfluous in the shape of worry. He 
will enable us to carry the legitimate load. 
One more word for the weary is, '' Cast 
your care on Hinty for He careth for you." 
The literal meaning of this tonic text is : 
He has you on His heart. What an in- 
spiring, gladdening thought ! The infinite 
God from His everlasting throne has poor 
little sinful me on His divine heart! My 



WORDS FOR THE WEARY. 89 

big load is not a feather to Him. He knows 
my frame ; He rem'embers that I am dust. 
Like as a father pitieth his children, so 
tlie Lord pitieth us poor weakhngs. He 
says to us, '^ Give me your burdens.'' Lie 
who piloted Noah and all the precious 
freight in the ark, w^ho supplied the widow's 
w^aning cruse of oil, who put Peter to 
sleep in the dungeon and calmed Paul 
in the roaring tempest, — He says to me, 
'' Roll your anxieties over on Me. I have 
you on My heart." What fools Vv^e are when 
we strap the load more tightly, and deter- 
mine that nobody shall carry it but our- 
selves ! 

Suppose that a weary, footsore traveller 
were trudging along an up-hill road on a 
sultry day, and a wagon overtakes him. 
The kind driver calls out: '' LIo ! my 
friend, you look tired. Throw that pack 
into my wagon ; I am going your way." 
But the silly wayfarer, eying him suspi- 
ciously, as if he wished to steal it, churl- 



90 M^ORDS FOR THE WEARY. 

ishly replies, '' Go along with you. I can 
carry my own luggage." We laugh at 
this obstinate folly, and then repeat the 
same insane sin against the God of love. 

When God says to us, '' Give Me your 
load, and I will help you," He does not re- 
lease us from our share of duty. No more 
does the atoning Saviour when He bears 
the guilt and penalty of our sins, release us 
from repentance of those sins or from obey- 
ing His commandments. God's offer is to 
lighten our loads by putting His grace into 
our hearts and underneath the load. He 
then becomes our strength. His all-sufifi- 
cient grace is made perfect in our weakness, 
so that God really carries the load. It was 
the Christ in Paul who defied Nero and 
conquered the devil. 

This divine doctrine of trust is a won- 
derfully restful one to weary disciples. It 
takes the tire out of the heart. As the 
infant drops over on mother's bosom into 
soft repose, so Faith rests its weary head on 



WORDS FOR THE WEARY. 9 1 

Jesus. He giveth His beloved sleep, so 
that they may wake up refreshed for their 
appointed work. 

It is not honest work that really wears 
any Christian out. It is the ague-fit of 
wo7'7y that consumes strength and furrows 
the cheek and brings on decrepitude. That 
giant of Jesus Christ who drew the Gospel 
chariot from Jerusalem to Rome, and had 
the care of all the churches on his great 
heart, never complained of being tired. 
The secret was that he never chafed his 
powers with a moment's worry. He was 
doing God's work, and he left God to be 
responsible for results. He knew whom he 
believed, and felt perfectly sure that all 
things work together for good to them who 
love the Lord Jesus. 

Just a word, in closing, to those who are 
getting tired of a life of sin and of serving 
Satan. Friends, you are serving a hard 
master. His wages are death. Again and 
again you have become disgusted with 



92 WOJ^DS FOR THE WEARY. 

yourselves as leading a frivolous, foolish 
life for an immortal being. All the pleas- 
ures you have ever paid so dearly for, all 
the accumulations you have earned, do not 
satisfy you. There is a hungry, aching 
spot in your soul. There comes many a 
moment in which you wish you had some- 
thing solider, sweeter, stronger, something 
to live for and to die by. You need Jesus 
Christ ! Wherefore do ye spend your labor 
for that which satisfieth not? Open your 
weary ear to that voice of His love : '' Come 
unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy 
laden, and I will give you rest." Learn of 
Him; live for Him; labor for Him. Life 
will glow with a new charm; your soul 
will then mount as with an eagle's wing; 
you will run, and never weary, you will 
walk with Jesus, and never faint. 




THE LORD REIGNETH. 



"\"\ 7HAT a magnificent outburst of loy- 
^ ^ alty opens the ninety-third psalm ! 
''The Lord reigneth, He is clothed with 
majesty; the Lord is clothed with strength, 
wherewith He hath girded Himself. Thy 
throne is established of old : Thou art 
from everlasting." Here we have the 
empire of love, the royal robe, the girdle 
of omnipotence, and the immovable throne. 
The psalmist would seem to have been 
thinking of the problems of life, its dark 
things and its mysteries. So many things 
seemed irreconcilable with the Divine 
goodness that he admits that '' clouds and 
darkness are round about Him." But this 
truth flashes out through the clouds, — the 



94 THE LORD R EIGNE TH. 

Lord reigns. That is enough. He does 
not try to pry into the council-chamber. 
He cannot get behind the cloud. But love 
reigns there, and justice and righteousness 
are the foundations of that throne. 

Not one of us has any trouble in accept- 
ing this doctrine of God's sovereignty as 
long as things go to our liking. We are 
perfectly satisfied to let God have His way 
as long as He does not cross us. We all 
believe in His administration, and are 
ready (as Dr. Finney used to say) to 
''vote God in as our governor" as long as 
business thrives and crops are plentiful 
and every one around our own table is 
hearty and happy. As long as His mer- 
cies are poured out in wine, we drink of 
them gladly ; but as soon as the same cup 
begins to taste of wormwood, we push it 
away in disgust, or cry out piteously, 
*' Let this cup pass from me." Any other 
cup we could have swallowed, but not this 
one. If God had only tried us with the 



THE LORD REIGNETH. 95 

loss of our property and spared us our 
health, we could have borne it; or if He 
had sent the sickness at some other time, 
we would not murmur so; or if His blow 
had struck us somew^here else but in our 
very tenderest spot, we should not cry out 
so bitterly. In short, if God had only con- 
sulted us as to the medicine we should 
take and as to the branch His pruning- 
knife should lop off, we would have been 
perfectly submissive. Every pastor en- 
counters this kind of faith in God's sover- 
eignty w^herever he goes. If the Lord 
governed so as to please everybody, there 
would not be a rebel in all His universe. 

As "some of our readers may just now be 
smarting under God's strokes of discipline 
or letting their hearts fester into rebellion, 
let us whisper a few truths into their ears. 
The first is that our Heavenly Father 
never afflicts one of His children but for a 
wise purpose. He never strikes at random 
or deals one blow in cruelty. Sometimes 



96 THE LORD REIGNETH, 

His chastisements 2S^ picnitive. Christians 
deserve punishment as truly as ungodly 
blasphemers do when they violate God's 
laws. A lazy Christian will com.e to want 
as soon as a lazy profligate. If as holy a 
man as Dr. Payson breaks some of God's 
sanitary regulations by overworking his 
nervous system and allowing himself no 
recreations, he must expect shattered 
nerves and early paralysis. One* of the 
excellences of God's government is that 
He never alters His laws to suit special 
cases. They are unchangeable. And I 
have heard of a great many '' mysterious 
providences " that had in them no mys- 
tery at all. They w^ere simply righteous 
retributions. There is no mystery when a 
bad manager, even though he be a Chris- 
tian, fails in business, or when a Christian 
merchant that has robbed himself of indis- 
pensable rest is stricken with softening of 
the brain. A thousand so-called '' provi- 
dences " might have been prevented by 



THE LORD REIGNETH. 97 

the exercise of a little common sense and 
conscience. If we break God's command- 
ments, we must pay the penalty. 

Sometimes our Sovereign sends afflic- 
tions that are preventive. They save us 
from something w^orse. As the headache 
and the self-loathing that follow a first 
bottle are intended to warn us against 
touching another, so God often puts a 
chastisement at the entrance to a path of 
danger. There is even a conserving influ- 
ence in some severe trials, just as the early 
snows that are now falling on our northern 
hills will conserve the winter wheat. I can 
recall more than one chilling providence 
which came in time to keep me from losing 
what I could not afford to spare. 

Still other afflictions are sent to purify 
character. God sits as a refiner beside 
His furnace. He heats it until the metal 
melts and the dross runs away. He keep- 
eth His silver in the furnace until He can 
see His own face reflected in the clear 
7 



98 THE LORD REIGNETH. 

metal of the heart as in a mirror. Then 
the affliction has done its work. God has 
made the vessel *' unto His own honor." 
There is such a wretched amount of self- 
will and pride and covetousness and un- 
beHef even in undoubted Christians, that 
they require the fining-pot very often. 
Many a man and woman has been the 
worse for want of this kind of discipline. 

It is a wholesome process to be '' taken 
down " occasionally. The grass in every 
lawn requires to be taken down by a 
mower. The oftener it is mowed the 
richer and the thicker is the growth. The 
lawn never looks so beautiful as after the 
keen-edged cutter has gone over it. I 
have observed that some Christians in my 
charge have never appeared so attractive 
in their humiUty and heavenly-mindedness 
as when God's mowing-machine has been 
passed over them. The great Apostle's 
career, as I read it in the masterly consec- 
utive narrative of Canon Farrar, showed in 



THE LORD REIGN ETH. 99 

almost every page the effects of the scythe. 
There was prodigious growth from the 
roots. Yet no man exalted God's sover- 
eignty more heartily than Paul. He gloried 
even in the tribulations which God per- 
mitted him to suffer, knowing that trib- 
ulation worketh patience, and patience 
experience, and experience hope. This too 
he knew, that in all this process the love 
of God was shed abroad in his heart by the 
Holy Ghost given unto him. 

We have discussed in this short paper 
just one aspect of God's government, 
namely, His personal rule of our own per- 
sonal lives and lot. His sovereignty on the 
grander scale of the natural world and of 
His vast spiritual kingdom we leave out of 
sight. It is a blessed thought that the 
Lord reigneth over little short-lived me as 
truly as over the whole Church or the 
whole universe. He numbereth the hairs 
of my head, and ordereth my steps. Let it 
be my daily and devoutest aim to lay the 



lOO THE LORD REIGN ETH, 

plan of my life on God's plan. If His im- 
movable laws push me back and hedge me 
in from sin, then all the better. If His 
sharp knife prunes me, then I am only the 
more sure that He loves me. Afflictions 
are like the cactus plant of His making, very 
unsightly and full of thorns, but they bear 
marvellous flowers in their time. God's 
government is the solidest ground of my 
confidence and joy. It underlies all my 
theology, and is the very rock-bed on 
which I rest my salvation. While Jeho- 
vah reigns let me rejoice to obey Him. 
To oppose Him is to invite His retribu- 
tions, and that means — Hell ! To submit 
to Him is to win His favor and to secure 
His love, and that means — Heaven ! The 
nearer we get to the throne the more 
loudly shall we sing, ''The Lord God om- 
nipotent reigneth ! " 



UP TO THE HILLS. 



nr^HE one hundred and twenty-first psalm 
■*■ is one of the most soul-inspiring in 
the whole psalter. It is named '^ a song of 
degrees," that is, a song of ascents, leading 
from the lower up to the higher. Whether 
this was originally intended as a musical 
expression or as a description of the ascent 
to the sacred mount in Jerusalem, it happily 
describes the spiritual idea of the psalm. 
The key-note is in the first verse. ** I will 
lift up mine eyes unto the hills [or moun- 
tains] from whence cometh my help. My 
help is from the Lord, which made heaven 
and earth." The grand idea is that we 
must look higher if we would live higher. 



I02 UP TO THE HILLS. 

We must have help from heaven if we 
would reach heaven. 

In things material and in things spiritual 
not one of us is created to entire indepen- 
dence. From infancy, when we depend on 
a mother's milk for nourishment, and child- 
hood, when we depend on our. teachers 
for instruction, clear through the activities 
of manhood, which require the aid of cus- 
tomers and clients in order to prosper, we 
cannot ever live a year in and by ourselves. 
Still more true is it that our moral life is 
one of weakness and of want. The impor- 
tant question is: Where shall we find the 
supplies for the soul's wants and the help 
for the soul's weakness? And the fatal 
mistake so often made is that the soul does 
not look high enough to secure substantial 
help and to insure a complete victory. For 
example, we are exposed to perpetual 
temptations, which draw us toward sin and 
thus tend to drag us downward. How are 
we to meet them? 



UP TO THE HILLS. 103 

We may employ arguments that are 
wholly of the earth, earthy. They have no 
motives that are not essentially selfish ; 
they do not recognize anything higher than 
self-interest, or appeal to any supernatu- 
ral power for aid. Here is a young man 
of ardent temperament, who is strongly 
tempted to sensual indulgence. He may 
say to himself: '* This will not pay for the 
risks. I shall injure my health; I shall 
stain the reputation of another; I may be 
discovered and disgraced." Assuredly the 
young Hebrew who was put to the strain 
of a tremendous temptation in the house of 
Potiphar laid hold of vastly higher motives 
than these. He lifted his eyes to the hills 
and made his appeal to God. '' How can 
I do this great wickedness," he cries out, 
*' and sin against God?" That appeal 
lashed him, as it were, to the everlasting 
throne, and divine grace made him tempta- 
tion-proof. 

Here is the only safeguard under the 



104 UP TO THE HILLS. 

pressure of assaults against conscience or 
of powerful enticements to some sinful self- 
gratification. The young man who is too 
fond of the champagne-glass needs some- 
thing more than the conviction that the 
bottle is endangering his health and his 
pocket, in order to keep him abstinent. He 
must recognize sin, as well as sorrow, in 
the sting which the '' viper in the glass " 
inflicts, and seek his help from the High- 
est. That is no trustworthy honesty which 
spurns the enticement to fraud simply be- 
cause detection may bring disgrace, because 
the man may persuade himself that in his 
circumstances detection is impossible. He 
is only safe when he looks up from these 
paltry motives, — up high enough to see 
God. In these days, when the press teems 
with obituaries of lost characters, it ought to 
be known that the only principle which can 
hold a merchant, or a cashier, or an ac- 
countant, is a Bible-conscience, which draws 
its strength from the everlasting hills of 
Right. 



UP TO THE HILLS. IO5 

There are some of us who have known 
what it is to drink bitter draughts of afflic- 
tion, and to have the four corners of our 
house smitten by a terrible sorrow. At 
such times, how hollow and worthless were 
many of the stereotyped prescriptions for 
comfort ! '^ Time must do its work/' was 
one of them. As if time could bring back 
the dead, or cruelly eradicate the beloved 
image from the memory ! '' Travel," is an- 
other of these quack recommendations for 
a wounded spirit. Just as if God had ever 
made an Atlantic wide enough to carry us 
out of the reach of heart-breaking misery ! 
Wretched comforters are they all. The 
suffering heart heeds not the voice of such 
charmers, charm they never so wisely. 
Never, never have I been able to gain one 
ray of genuine consolation until I lifted my 
eyes unto the hills from whence cometh 
the Almighty help. As soon as I have 
begun to taste of God's exceeding great and 
precious promises my strength has begun 



I06 UP TO THE HILLS. 

to revive. As soon as His everlasting arm 
got hold around me the burden grew lighter, 
— yea, it carried me and the load likewise. 
God opened to me paths of usefulness 
which were in the line of His service, and 
also of blessings to my fellow-men. And so 
help flowed down to me from the hills like 
the streams that make music from the 
precipices to one who climbs the Wenzern 
Alp. 

This sublime passage from the hundred 
and twenty-first psalm throws its sugges- 
tive side-light on the question why many 
of my readers have never obtained a solid 
and satisfactory religious hope. You will 
admit in your honest hours that you are 
not what you ought to be, nor what you 
yet intend to be. You admit that you 
are sinners. You have no expectation of 
being lost to all eternity. Certain steps 
you have taken in past times, but they all 
left you as low down as you started. Both 
your motives and your methods were 



UP TO THE HILLS. lO/ 

pitched too low. All attempts at self-salva- 
tion were as futile as would be the attempt 
to lift yourself by grasping hold of your 
own shoes. Even religious services failed 
to bring you any substantial change of 
heart and character, because you did not 
get your eye or thought above them. The 
best sermon ever preached is only a cup 
after all. It may bring the water, but the 
cup itself cannot quench thirst. 

What you need is to lift your eyes above 
your sinful, needy self, above your church- 
goings and other religious observances, 
above every one and everything, to the 
only mountain whence cometh your help. 
That mountain is Calvary. The crucified 
and now living Son of God is the object on 
which you must fix your eye. As a living 
man, you need a living Christ. You want 
not a system of doctrine, but a personal 
Saviour. You need some one not only to 
lay your hand upon, but one who can 
return the grasp of that hand. The Hft 



I08 UP TO THE HILLS. 

must come from Him. The new life must 
come from Him. '^ His blood cleanseth 
from all sin " is a mere abstract truth 
until you come up to that atoning blood 
for yourself. Submit to its cleansing, as 
Naaman submitted to be washed in Jordan. 
'*A living trust in Jesus has power unto 
salvation only because it is the means by 
which the saving power of God may come 
into your heart." Faith is not a mere in- 
tellectual opinion. It is a heart transaction, 
by which you lay hold on Jesus and Jesus 
saves. His sacrifice for sin avails for you ; 
His strength becomes yours ; His example 
teaches you how to live your own daily 
life ; His Spirit comes to dwell within you ; 
His armor protects you ; and His service 
becomes the inspiration of your whole 
being. When you ascend into Christ you 
reach a loftier, purer atmosphere. Security 
is gained up there as in a stronghold on a 
cliff. Six times over in this psalm the in- 
spired penman tells us how the Lord is thy 



UP TO THE HILLS, lOQ 

keeper, and how He shall preserve thy soul 
to all eternity. My friend, lift your eyes 
upward. Let your voice go up in fervent 
prayer to the everlasting hills. Put your 
feet firmly on the path that leads straight 
toward God. When you reach Him in this 
world you have reached heaven in the 
next world. 




RIGHT SEEING. 



'' n^HOU hast well seen." These were 
^ God's words to Jeremiah when He 
called him to his life-work as a "seer" or 
prophet to the people of Israel. He puts 
to the modest, self-distrustful young man 
the question, "What seest thou?" Jere- 
miah replies, " I see a rod of an almond 
tree." This is just what the Lord meant 
that he should see ; the almond was a tree 
of rapid growth and early bloom ; it typi- 
fied speedy action. As the young Jew had 
shown his capacity for right discernment, 
the Lord commended his wise answer, and 
said to him, " Thou hast well seen." 

There is a right way and a wrong way 
of looking at almost everything. To- a 



RIGHT SEEING. Ill 

man who has no eye for beauty one of 
Claude's landscapes is merely so much 
paint and linen canvas ; to another it is a 
masterpiece of golden sunlight bathing 
field and forest with its glory. To many 
it was predicted that Christ, the Messiah, 
would be as '' a root out of dry ground, 
having no form or comeliness. When they 
shall see Him, there is no beauty that they 
should desire Him ; He will be despised 
and rejected of men." When He came, 
therefore, to His own, they received Him 
not. As many as beheld Him rightly and 
received Him, to them gave He the privi- 
lege of becoming the children of God. He 
is to them the chief among ten thousand, 
and the altogether lovely. Christ never 
changes. The difference between the 
thoughtless sinner and the same person 
after he is converted, is, that he looks at 
Him with a new eye, and sees Him to be 
the very Saviour that he needs. 

Some people look at God only as a con- 



112 RIGHT SEEING. 

suming fire, and are struck with despair. 
Others go to the opposite extreme, and 
see in Him nothing but pity and pardon- 
ing mercy; they easily sHde off into Uni- 
versaHsm. But the man who magnifies 
God's mercy at the expense of His justice, 
and who does not beheve that He will pun- 
ish sin as it deserves, has not *'well seen." 
He will be cured of his delusion on the 
Day of Judgment. Those wise men at 
Westminster saw the Divine Being, our 
Heavenly Father, in the right proportions 
of His attributes when they framed that 
wonderful answer to that question in the 
Catechism, '' What is God ? " 

In nothing are we all apt to make more 
terrible blunders than in looking at God's 
providential dealings. Even some Chris- 
tians have a heathenish habit of talking 
about '^good luck" and ''windfalls" and 
'' bad fortune," and other expressions that 
convey the idea that this life is a mere 
game of chance. Blind unbelief may be 



RIGHT SEEING. I I 3 

expected to err, and to scan God's work 
as either a riddle or a muddle. A Chris- 
tian, who has had his eyes opened, ought to 
know better. Yet how often do we all re- 
gard God's dealings in a wrong light, and 
call them by the wrong name ! We fre- 
quently speak of certain things as afflic- 
tions when they are really blessings in 
disguise. We congratulate people on gain- 
ing what turns out to be a terrible snare, 
or a worse than loss. Quite as often we 
condole with them over a lot which is 
about to yield to them mercies more pre- 
cious than gold. Old Jacob probably 
thought that he was a fair subject for com- 
miseration on that evening when he sat 
moaning in his tent-door ; but the caravan 
was just approaching which brought him 
Simeon and Benjamin, and glorious tid- 
ings about the long-lost Joseph. He had 
not well seen what sort of a God he was 
serving. 

Let us hesitate before we condole with a 



114 RIGHT SEEING, 

brother who is under the chastisement of our 
loving Father in Heaven. Be careful how 
you condole with a man who has lost his 
money and saved his good name, or con- 
gratulate the man who has made a million 
at the expense of his piety. When a Chris- 
tian is toppled over from a dizzy and dan- 
gerous height, and '^brought down to hard 
pan,'' he is brought down to the solid rock 
at the same time. In the valley of humili- 
ation he has more of the joy of God's 
countenance, and wears more of the herb 
called ^' heart's-ease " in his bosom, than he 
ever did in the days of his giddy prosper- 
ity. Sickness has often brought to a man 
spiritual recovery ; suffering has often 
wrought out for him an exceeding weight 
of glory. The writer of this paragraph 
has lately been led through a very shad- 
owy pathway of trial ; but it has never 
been so dark that he could not see to read 
some precious promises that glowed like 
diamonds. The adversary tries hard to 



RIGHT SEEING. I I 5 

break our lamp, and to steal our diamonds 
in those dark -passage-ways of trial. We 
need good eyesight in such times of trouble, 
so as not to stumble, or to lose sight of the 
Comforter, or of the bright light which 
shines at the end of the w^ay. 

I have seen people condole tenderly 
with a weeping mother whose child has 
flown away home to heaven ; but they 
never thought of condoling with her over 
a living child who was a frivolous slave 
of fashion, or a dissipated sensualist, or a 
wayward son, the "heaviness of his mother." 
A hundred times over have I pitied more 
the parent of a living sorrow than the par- 
ent of a departed joy. Spare your tears 
from the darlings who are safe in the arms 
of Jesus, and spend them over the living 
who are yet dead in sin and sheer impeni- 
tence. Let us learn to see things rightly, 
and call them by their right names. We 
too often drape our real blessings with a 
pall, and decorate our dangerous tempta- 



I 1 6 RIGHT SEEING, 

tions with garlands. The sharpest trials 
this nation ever knew have turned into 
tender mercies. Garfield in his grave has 
done more for us than Garfield could have 
done in the presidential chair. Satan out- 
witted himself when he armed one of his 
imps to be an assassin. 

Let us all pray fervently for spiritual 
discernment. Lord, open Thou our eyes ! 
Then we shall see this world to be a mere 
training-school for a better world ; we shall 
see a Father's smile behind the darkest 
cloud ; we shall see in duty done our highest 
delight ; and at the end of the conflict we 
shall see the King in His beauty ^ and know 
Him even as we are known. 




THE LORD OUR STRENGTH. 



^ I ^HE first lesson of childhood is human 
-^ weakness. The earliest cry of the in- 
fantbetrays it. At the other end of life we 
often see a pitiable dotage, such as I en- 
countered lately in the case of a man who 
was once a luminary of the American pul- 
pit, but now cannot remember the names 
of his own children. But the weakest side 
of humanity is its moral side. Colossal 
intellect is often found lodged in the same 
person with a conscience of mere pulp. 
For the sake of morality, I rejoice that 
Madame de Remusat and Metternich have 
lately been stripping away the glamour that 
has hung around that stupendous embodi- 
ment of selfishness, Napoleon I. They 



Il8 THE LORD OUR STRENGTH. 

show US the intellectual giant continually 
pushed over with a straw. The chief les- 
son of such a career as Napoleon's is to 
demonstrate what a contemptible creature 
man is the moment he cuts loose from 
God. 

One of the chief purposes of our divine 
religion is to teach man where to find this 
indispensable element of strength. The 
Divine Word, coming from the very Maker 
of man, who knows us completely, de- 
clares that '' he who trusteth in his own 
heart is a fool." We have no spiritual 
strength in ourselves. Just as our bodies 
derive all their strength from the food we 
eat, and every oak draws its strength from 
the surrounding earth and air, so our souls 
obtain all spiritual power from a source 
outside of us. Psalmist David, whose na- 
tive weaknesses were deplorably conspicu- 
ous, was only strong when in alliance with 
God. His declaration is, ''The Lord is my 
strength." This is the only strength which 



THE LORD OUR STRENGTH. 



119 



the Bible recognizes. Who are the Bible 
heroes? Men of genius, wits, orators, 
philosophers? No. They are the Enoch 
who walked with God, the Joseph who 
conquered sensual temptation because God 
was with him, the Elijah who stood like a 
granite pillar against the tides of idolatry, 
and the Daniel who never quailed at the 
lion's roar. Daniel gives us the secret of 
his strength in his three-times-a-day inter- 
views with God. The Lord fed his inner 
soul as the subterranean springs feed a well 
and keep it full during summer droughts. 

God's strength is ^' made perfect in our 
weakness." This means that the divine 
power is most conspicuous when our weak- 
ness is the most thoroughly felt. We have 
got first to be emptied of all self-conceit 
and self-confidence. A bucket cannot hold 
air and water at the same time. As the 
water comes in the air must go out. The 
meaning of some hard trials is to get the 
accursed spirit of self out of our hearts. 



I20 THE LORD OUR STRENGTH. 

When we have been emptied of self-trust, 
we are in the condition to be filled with 
might in the inner man by the power of 
the Holy Spirit. When Isaiah felt that 
he was but a child, and an unclean one at 
that, he received the touch of celestial 
fire. Peter had immense confidence in 
Peter when he boasted of his own strength ; 
but after pride had got its fall, Peter is 
endued with power from on high, and 
then the apostle who was frightened by a 
servant-girl could face a Sanhedrim. A 
Christian must not only realize his own 
utter feebleness, but he must give up 
what worldlings rely on, and admit that 
*' vain is the help of man." 

That poor woman w^ho had tried all the 
doctors in her neighborhood, and had 
only grown worse in body and poorer in 
purse, is a touching illustration of our in- 
valid souls. She despaired of human help, 
and came crouching to the feet of the 
Son of God. One touch of His garments 



THE LORD OUR STRENGTH, 12 1 

sent a new tide of health througn her 
veins. Contact with Christ brings cur- 
rents of the divine power into our souls, so 
that we can do all things through Christ 
which strengtheneth us. At the very out- 
set of the spiritual life this divine strength 
becomes recognized. A Gough or a Saw- 
yer testifies that he gained his victory over 
the bottle by the influx of a new principle 
and a new power into his heart. The 
essence of conversion with them was that 
the seven devils of lust for the cup were 
cast out, and Christ came in. This was 
a supernatural work, the very thing that 
modern scepticism hoots at; but a Bible 
which did not bring a supernatural ele- 
ment into weak and wicked humanity 
would not be worth the paper on which it 
is printed. If the Christ of Christianity 
cannot and does not endow a frail sinner 
with supernatural power to resist terrible 
temptations, then is Christianity a confessed 
imposture and delusion. But it does stand 



122 THE LORD OUR STRENGTH. 

this very crucial test. Multitudes have 
given the triumphant testimony that, under 
sore pressure, the Lord stood with them and 
strengthened them. Their testimony has 
always been, *^ When I am weak, then am I 
strong," — that is, when I get emptied of 
self-trust Jesus comes in and strengthens 
me. Charles G. Finney has left us some 
wonderful experiences of the prodigious 
tides of power which poured into his soul 
and into his work when he humbled him- 
self before God and put his own soul, like 
an empty vessel, under the divine power, 
until he became filled *' unto all the fulness 
of God." 

This is the real office of faith. It is sim- 
ply the linking of our utter weakness to the 
omnipotence of Christ. We furnish weak- 
.ness and He furnishes strength, and that 
makes the partnership. The baby furnishes 
a hungry little mouth, and the mother fur- 
nishes the nourishing milk. The mother 
is happy that she can give the full supply, 



THE LORD OUR STRENGTH. 1 23 

and the rosy darling is happy as it draws 
in the sweet contentment. Beautiful pic- 
ture of my poor w^eak, hungry soul resting 
on the bosom of the Infinite Love ! There 
is no danger that the supply will ever give 
out, for my Lord, my Feeder, my Supporter, 
is constantly saying unto me, " My grace 
is sufficient for thee." In this way we are 
strengthened with all might according to 
His glorious power. A happier translation 
of the sentence in i Colossians would be, 
'' ^V^forced with all force." We have re- 
tained the word "'' reinforce " in the English 
language, and it is a pity that we have 
dropped the older word '' inforce," for it 
describes exactly the impartation of the 
divine strength to a believer's soul. 

Alas, how easily we run dry, and how 
constantly we need replenishment ! Yes- 
terday's breakfast will not feed me to- 
morrow. The Christian who tries to live 
on the experiences of last year were as 
insane as if he attempted to work on the 



124 THE LORD OUR STRENGTH. 

food eaten a month ago. Lord, everinore 
give us this bread ! They that wait on 
the Lord shall renew their strength, the 
waste shall constantly be repaired, and the 
new emergency shall be met with a fresh 
supply. 

One great purpose in all afflictions is 
to bring us down to the everlasting arms. 
We had become presumptuous, and had 
made flesh our arm. We were trying to go 
alone, and then came a fall. Trouble, and 
even bereavement, may be a great blessing, 
if it sends us home to Jesus. A boy often 
forgets that he has a home until a cut or a 
bruise sends him crying to his mother's side 
for the bandage or the medicine. God 
often strikes away our props to bring us 
down upon His mighty arms. What 
strength and peace it gives us to feel them 
underneath us ! Far as we may sink, we 
cannot go farther down than those out- 
stretched arms. There we stop, there we 
rest; and the everlasting arms not only 



THE LORD OUR STRENGTH. I 25 

sustain us, but carry us along, as on eagles' 
wings. Faith is just the clinging of my 
weak soul to the Omnipotent Jesus ; its 
constant cry is ; — 

" I am weak, but Thou art mighty : 
Hold me with Thy powerful hand." 

To that hand let me cling with all the five 
fingers of my faith. It will never let me 
drop until it lands me in glory. 




A CONSTANT SALVATION. 



A CLIPPER ship crossing the Banks 
■^ ^ of Newfoundland, in heavy weather 
strikes an iceberg. She settles rapidly at 
the bow, and her captain and crew have 
barely time to leap into the life-boat. The 
question, ^^ What must we do to be saved ? '* 
is answered by their prompt leap into the 
life-boat, which is an act of faith. They 
trust their lives to it for salvation. From 
immediate death they are saved. 

But, after the ship has sunk, the crew 
are still out in the deep and dangerous sea. 
There is a second process necessary. In 
order to keep out of the trough of the sea 
and to reach the distant shore, they must 
stick to the boat and pull lustily at the 



A CONSTANT SALVATION. 12/ 

oars. They must '' work out their salva- 
tion " now by hard rowing. But this is a 
continiLed process of salvation day after 
day until they reach the shores of Nova 
Scotia. Never for a moment, however, 
are they independent of the life-boat. That 
must keep them afloat, or they go to the 
bottom. At last, after hard rowing, they 
reach the welcome shore. This is their 
third, final, and complete salvation, for 
they are entirely beyond any perils of the 
treacherous sea. Now they are at rest, for 
they have reached the desired haven. 

This homely parable will illustrate with 
sufficient clearness the three ways in which 
the word salvation is employed in God's 
Word and in human experience. The first 
leap into the life-boat illustrates that deci- 
sive act of the soul in quitting all other 
worthless reliances and throwing itself on 
Christ Jesus in simple, believing trust. 
This is conversion. By it the soul is deliv- 
ered from the guilt and condemnation of 
sin. 



128 A CONSTANT SALVATION. 

The Holy Spirit is active in this step, 
cleansing and renewing the heart. By this 
act of surrender to Christ the sinner es- 
capes from death into life. He may joy- 
fully cry out, ^' By the grace of God I am 
saved!'' 

Yet this converted believer is no more 
independent of Christ as a Saviour than 
those sailors were of that life-bpat; for 
until he reaches the consummated deliver- 
ance of heaven (which is what the word 
*' salvation" signifies in Psalrr: xci. i6) 
he must be clinging to Christ Jesus ev- 
ery day. And it is this daily ?..nd hourly 
salvation that we wish to emphasize at 
present. Too many people limit the word 
to the initial step of converting faith, and 
falsely conclude that nothing more is to be 
done. A certain school of rather mystical 
Christians so magnify this act of receiv- 
ing the '' gift of eternal life" in Christ that 
they quite forget the fact that a vast deal of 
head winds, hard rowing, conflict with the 



A CONSTANT SALVATION. 1 29 

devil and remaining lusts must be encoun- 
tered. 

There is a very important sense in which 
every true servant of Christ is obliged to 
'* work out his salvation " every day of his 
life, if he lives a century. It was not to 
impenitent sinners or to anxious inquirers 
that Paul addressed the famous injunction, 
'' Work out your ow^n salvation with fear and 
trembling; " he was addressing the blood- 
bought church at Philippi. And if he 
were alive to-day he might well ring these 
solemn w^ords into the ears of every Chris- 
tian in the land. For if our original deliv- 
erance from the condemnation of sin and 
from the desert of hell depended on our 
surrender to Christ, so our constant salva- 
tion from the assaults of sin depends upon 
our constant clinging to the Saviour and our 
constant obedience to His commandments. 
Faith without works is dead. Brethren, we 
may be in the life-boat, but the life-boat is 
not heaven. There is many a hard tug at the 
9 



1 3 O A CONS TANT SAL VA TION, 

oar, many a night of tempest, many a dan- 
ger from false lights, and many a scud under 
bare poles (with pride's ** top-hammer " all 
gone), before we reach the shining shore. 
To the last moment on earth our salva- 
tion depends on complete submission to 
Jesus. Without Him, nothing; with Him, 
all things. 

Please bear in mind that salvation sig- 
nifies simply the process of saving. Our 
Blessed Master means to save us and our 
lives for Himself, if we will let Him do it and 
will honestly co-operate with Him. Yonder 
is an acre of weeds which its owner wishes 
to save from barrenness to fruitfulness ; so 
he subjugates it with plough and harrow 
and all the processes of cultivation. If the 
soil should cry out against the ploughshare 
and the harrow and the hoe, the farmer's 
answer would be, ** Only by submission 
to this discipline can I rear the golden 
crop which shall be to your credit and to 
my glory." In like manner, by absolute 



A CONSTANT SALVATION. 131 

submission to Christ's will, by constant 
obedience to His pure commandments, by 
the readiness to be used by Him entirely for 
His own purposes can you or I be saved to 
life's highest end. The instant that I real- 
ize entirely that I am Christ's, I must also 
realize that my time must be saved from 
waste for Him and my influence must be 
consecrated to Him. All accumulation is 
by wise saving. Sin means waste, and ends 
in ruin and remorse. The honest, devoted 
Christian is literally '* working out his sal- 
vation " when he is daily striving to redeem 
his time, and employ his utmost capacity, 
and use his every opportunity to make his 
life a beautiful offering and possession for 
his Lord. If we were not worth saving, 
our Lord would never have tasted the bit- 
ter agonies of Golgotha to redeem us. If 
every saved follower is by and by to be 
presented by Christ ''faultless, with exceed- 
ing joy," then is a Christian hfe a jewel 
worthy of His diadem. O my soul, let 



132 A CONSTANT SALVATION, 

Him work in me to will and to do accord- 
ing to His good pleasure, if I can be made 
to yield this revenue of honor to my be- 
loved Lord ! 

There is another sense in which Christ 
furnishes us a constant salvation. His 
presence saves me in the hour of strong 
temptation. He keeps me from falling in 
a thousand cases where I do not directly 
recognize His hand. When I wake up in 
the morning, after a night ride in a Pull- 
man car, I do not know how many human 
hands have been busy in order that I might 
ride safely through the pitch darkness ; 
and when I get to heaven, perhaps I may 
find out how often Jesus interposed to save 
me from threatened ruin and from unsus- 
pected dangers. He was saving me in a 
hundred ways that I did not dream of, and 
the visible acknowledged deliverances were 
all due to Him. Daily grace means a daily 
salvation. Paul lived thus in constant de- 
pendence, realizing that if Christ withdrew 



A CONSTANT SALVATION. 1 33 

His arm he must sink in an instant. Not 
for one moment can I dispense with the 
Hfe-boat until my foot stands where *' there 
is no more sea." 

If these things be true, then we ought ever 
to be praying: *' O Lord, what must I 
do now to be saved? To be saved from 
waste of time ; to be saved from dishonor- 
ing Thee; to be saved from secret sin; and 
to be saved up to the fullest, richest, holi- 
est service of Thyself? " He can help us 
to accomplish all this, for His grace can 
bring us a full salvation. When we reach 
heaven, we shall no longer need to be 
saved. The voyage will be over, the dan- 
gers ended; the multitudes who have been 
saved will then walk in the light of the 
New Jerusalem, and cast their crowns at 
the feet of Him who purchased for us 
so ineffably glorious and transcendent a 
SALVATION. 



HEALTHY AND HAPPY. 



THE Christmas bells are ringing in the 
brightest day in the Christian calendar. 
The clock of time will soon strike for the 
birth of another twelvemonth, when every 
man will wish his neighbor a '' Happy New 
Year ! " To many it will no doubt be a 
day of sadness, for it will remind them of 
the loved ones whom the past year has 
buried out of their sight; but every gen- 
uine disciple of Jesus, every heir of heaven, 
ought to possess deep and abiding resour- 
ces of joy, that lie as far beneath the tem- 
pests of trial as the depths of the Atlantic 
are beneath the storms that have lately torn 
its surface into foaming billows. Every 
healthy Christian ought to be a happy 



HEALTHY AND HAPPY. 135 

Christian under every stress of circum- 
stances. 

A living Christian who is worthy of the 
name must possess more or less of the holi- 
ness without which no man can see the 
Lord. There is a misconception and a 
prejudice in the minds of some good people 
in regard to this word, on account of the 
abuse of it by certain visionaries of the 
*' perfectionist " school. But holiness sig- 
nifies health of heart and life. It is equiva- 
lent to the Saxon word wholthy and to 
be holy is really to be whole or healed. 
Sin is soul-sickness ; regeneration by the 
Divine Spirit is recovery from that sickness. 
There is no condemnation of. guilt to them 
who are in Christ Jesus ; He is the physi- 
cian who delivers them from deadly disease. 
If good health means misery, then is a 
sincere Christian a miserable mope ; but 
if health means a happy condition, then 
should Christ's redeemed ones be the most 
cheerful, sunny-hearted people in the com- 
munity. 



136 HEALTHY AND HAPPY. 

There are several characteristics of a true 
child of God. One of them is that he is 
forgiven. To be pardoned has made many 
a prison-door like a gate of paradise. The 
sweet sense of sin forgiven has been an' 
ecstasy to thousands who had '' groaned, 
being burdened," but had found relief at 
the cross of Christ. Another evidence of 
spiritual health is a good conscience, — a 
conscience enlightened by the Bible, a 
conscience kept sweet and wholesome by 
prayer, a conscience that comforts its 
possessor, instead of tormenting him by a 
certain fearful looking-for of judgment. 
What a diseased liver is in the bodily 
organization, is a bad conscience in the 
spiritual man, it breeds continual mischief 
and misery. ''How is your liver?" was 
the first question of a shrewd and humor- 
ous old minister to me on my entrance 
into the ministry. When I told him that 
it was sound, he replied, '' Then j/ou 7/ doJ' 
That Christian never suffers from spiritual 



HEALTHY AND HAPPY, I 37 

dyspepsia who keeps a conscience void of 
offence towards God and man. 

A healthy soul has a strong appetite for 
Divine truth. He enjoys the daily manna 
of the Word, and has no lustings for the 
" flesh-pots " of the world. It is not the 
stimulant of spiced pastry that he is after, 
but the strong meat of the gospel as well 
as the honeycomb. His soul '^ delights it- 
self in the fatness " of God's Word. To 
some people Mr. Moody's style of talking 
about the banquet which the Bible affords 
him seems like extravagance; the reason 
is, that their spiritual taste is utterly cor- 
rupted by feeding on such confectionery as 
novels and secular newspapers. A combi- 
nation of Bible-diet and Bible-duties would 
soon make them as vigorous as Mr. Moody. 
If he did not show in his own conduct and 
condition the '' feeding " he lives on, he 
would not make m^any converts. 

Holiness is constant agreement with God. 
It is the agreement of love — deeper even 



138 HEALTHY AND HAPPY, 

and sweeter than the most unbroken 
wedlock. From this harmony of soul with 
the Divine Will flows a great deep, broad 
river of peace, which passeth all under- 
standing and fathoming. This stream grows 
deeper and wider, until, like an Amazon, it 
empties into the ocean of eternal love. The 
holy believer — who accepts God's prom- 
ises more readily than the best government 
bonds, who shapes his life in conformity 
with Christ, who keeps his soul's windows 
open towards the sun-rising, who makes 
even a cross the ladder for a climb into a 
higher fellowship with Jesus, who realizes 
that just before him lies the exceeding and 
eternal weight of glory, — cannot be made 
a sour or peevish or melancholy man by 
any outward circumstances. The holy- 
minded Rutherford of Scotland wrote most 
of his immortal '' Letters " within the cell 
of a martyr's prison. They read like leaves 
from the tree of life, floated down on sun- 
beams. '' Come, O my well-beloved ! " he 



HEALTHY AND HAPPY. I 39 

exclaims ; '^ move fast, that we may meet 
at the banquet. I would not exchange one 
smile of Christ's lovely face for kingdoms. 
There is no house-room for crosses in 
heaven. Sorrow and the saints are not. 
married together; or, if it were so, heaven 
would divorce them." The holiness of such 
a man is not the enthusiasm of a visionary 
or the mere outburst of transient emotion; 
it is the normal condition of the man, the 
wholeness of a soul that has been trans- 
formed by grace into the likeness and the 
life of Jesus Christ. Keeping Christ's com- 
mandments keeps the eye clear and the 
temper sweet and the will submissive and 
the affections pure: in these hes the rich 
reward. 

The highest type of piety is cheerful. 
The more we stud}' the lives and examples 
of the healthiest Christians, the more we 
find them to be the men and women who 
walk in the sunshine. The Luthers, the 
Wilberforces, the Summerfields, the Guth- 



140 HEALTHY AND HAPPY, 

ries, the Spurgeons, and the Norman Mc- 
Leods were and are the Hving illustrations 
of the truth that close contact with God is 
the supremest source of happiness. There 
is such a thing as '' the joy in the Holy- 
Spirit/' There is a meat for the soul to feed 
on that this lying, deceitful, and deceived 
world knoweth not of. The measure of 
our holiness is the true measure of our 
happiness ; it will be the measure of our 
final enjoyment of heaven. 

Brooklyn, December, 1881. 




THE ANGELS OF THE SEPULCHRE. 



IN the most beautiful cemetery at the 
capital of this Commonwealth stands a 
marble statue carved by the cunning of 
Palmer's chisel. It represents " The Angel 
of the Sepulchre." On every side the dead 
are sleeping; but beside them sits this 
silent sentinel, as if to guard the slumbering 
dust until the resurrection-trump sounds 
the reveille on the Judgment morn. That 
angel which Palmer's chisel fashioned is 
of solid stone ; but the '' angels in white " 
whom Mary of Magdala saw in the deserted 
tomb of Jesus were pure incorporeal spirits. 
They assumed a visible form ; but angels 
are never described as material beings of 
flesh and blood like ourselves. Excelling 



142 THE ANGELS OF THE SEPULCHRE. 

in strength, they go forth as God's mes- 
sengers to do His will, to watch over 
children, to bear home the departed spirits 
of God's people, and to encamp round 
about His covenant ones who fear Him. 

From those angelic appearances at the 
tomb of our Redeemer on His resurrection 
morn we may gather some cheering les- 
sons. When the anxious Marys were on 
their way to that tomb with their spices, 
the thought flashed into their minds, ^^ Who 
will roll away for us that rock at the sepul- 
chre?" But the difficulty is solved in a 
way that they had not dreamed of. An 
angel from heaven has already been there, 
and has opened the gate of rock to let the 
King of Glory out. So God often sends an 
angel of Help to roll away our hinderances. 
Some of them are real obstacles, some of 
them are created by our fears. The awak- 
ened sinner often encounters difficulties in 
a stubborn will, or in long- formed habits, 
or in obstinate appetites. As soon as he 



THE ANGELS OF THE SEPULCHRE. 1 43 

submits to Christ, he finds these difficul- 
ties give way: divine power achieves for 
him what his own unaided weakness could 
not accomplish. 

Many a child of God has been brought 
under a sore bereavement, and the first 
thought has been, Oh, how can I bear this 
burden of grief ? How can I surmount all 
these new hardships and difficulties? A 
widow left with a brood of orphans, and 
with scanty provision to feed and clothe 
them, is tempted to give up in despair. 
But when she reaches one difficulty after 
another, lo ! the stone is rolled away. A 
friend provides for this lad ; a home is of- 
fered to another; a third begins to help 
himself and mother too; and she soon 
finds that she can do a hundred things 
which she thought impossible. Beside the 
widow in her weeds walked an angel in 
white, which strengthened her. 

God always has an angel of help for 
those who are willing to do their duty. 



144 ^^^ ANGELS OF THE SEPULCHRE. 

How often have we been afraid to under- 
take some difficult work for Him, but as 
soon as we laid hold of it the rock of hin- 
derance was removed. The tempter told 
us that if we attempted to save some har- 
dened soul we should encounter an im- 
movable adamant. We had faith enough 
to try, and prayer brought the power 
which turned the heart of stone to flesh. 
Evermore the adversary is busy in frighten- 
ing us from labors of love for our Master. 
Yet if our single aim is to reach Jesus and 
to honor Jesus, no hinderance is immovable. 
The world thought Paul a madman and 
Luther a fanatic, and Wilberforce and Dufif 
but pious visionaries. When the Omnipo- 
tent Help came down, opposing rocks were 
swept away, and the Devil's guards were 
put to flight. The very lions which 
frighten — '' Mistrust " and " Timorous '* 
• — are discovered to be ** chained " when 
a persevering Christian comes up to 
them. 



THE ANGELS OF THE SEPULCHRE. 1 45 

But Help is not the only angel which 
God sends to His beheving ones. There 
is another bright spirit, whom we never 
meet more surely than at the sepulchre 
where our treasures sleep. The name of 
this angel in w^hite is Hope. She sits to- 
day by the little mounds that cover the 
forms we loved. When I go out to the 
grassy hill in Greenwood where my dar- 
ling boy has lain for a dozen summers, I 
meet that angel at the tomb. The words 
she chanted when the casket was sealed up 
and hidden beneath the earth are sounding 
still : "" All them who sleep in Jesus will 
God bring with Him." As Mary Magda- 
lene saw the angel through her tears, so 
the believer sees through tears of sorrow the 
white-robed angel of Hope. A clear-eyed 
angel is she, and one that excels in strength. 
She hath other ministering spirits with her 
to minister to the heirs of salvation. Pa- 
tience attends her, and Prayer with a cas- 
ket of promises, and Peace with her serene 
10 



146 THE ANGELS OF THE SEPULCHRE, 

countenance, and Love, which is stronger 
than death. 

The tomb in Joseph's garden was filled 
with light where the two bright spirits sat, 
*' the one at the head and the other at the 
feet where the body of Jesus had lain." 
Even so do the angels of Divine help and 
hope turn the midnight of sorrow into 
dawn. To the eye of unbelief the grave 
is a ghostly spot. Faith peoples '' God's 
acre " with angels, and fills the air with 
prophetic songs of praise. And what a 
scene will the Greenwoods and Mount 
Auburns present when the angelic legions 
shall roll away every stone, and gather 
Christ's chosen ones to meet Him on His 
throne ! 

" Lo ! the seal of death is breaking ! 
Those who slept its sleep are waking ; 

Heaven opes its portals fair. 
Hark ! the harps of God are ringing ! 
Hark ! the seraphs' hymns are flinging 
Music on immortal air 1 " 



THE NIGHT-LODGING AND THE 
DAY-DAWN. 



WHEN travelling in Palestine last 
year we occasionally came upon a 
wayside khan. Before one of those rude 
inns the traveller halts at the sunset, feeds 
his beasts, stretches himself on the floor, 
and in the cool dawn of the next morning 
saddles his horse or mule and pushes on 
his journey. This familiar custom was in 
the Psalmist's mind when he wrote, *^ Weep- 
ing may endure for a night, but joy cometh 
in the morning." This verse, literally trans- 
lated, would read, *^ In the evening sorrow 
lodgeth, and at the day-dawn cometh shout- 
ing." Sorrow is represented as only a 
lodger for a night, to be succeeded by joy 
at the sunrising. 



148 THE NIGHT-LODGING 

This is a truthful picture of most frequent 
experiences ; it is full of comfort to God's 
people, and it points on to the glorious 
dawn of heaven's eternal day, when the 
night-watch of life is over. Sorrow is often 
the precursor of joy; sometimes it is so 
needful, that unless we endure the one we 
cannot have the other. Some of us have 
known what it is to have severe sickness 
lodge in our bodily tent, when every nerve 
became a tormentor and every muscle a 
highway for pain to course over. We lay 
on our beds conquered and helpless. But 
the longest night has its dawn. At length 
returning health began to steal in upon us, 
like the earliest gleams of morning light 
through the window shutters. Never did 
food taste so delicious as the first meal of 
which we partook at our own table. Never 
did the sunbeams fall so sweet and golden 
as on that first Sabbath when we ventured 
out to church ; and no discourse ever tasted 
so like heavenly manna as the one our pas- 



AND THE DAY-DAWN, l^g 

tor poured into our hungry ears that day. 
We sang the thirtieth psalm with melody 
in the heart, and no verse more gratefully 
than this one, '' Sorrow may endure for a 
night, but joy cometh in the morning/' 

Many a night of hard toil has been fol- 
lowed by the longed-for dawn of success. 
When we were weary with the rowing the 
blessed Master came to us on the waves 
and cried out, '^Be of good cheer; it is I." 
As soon as He entered the boat the skies 
lighted up, and presently the boat was in 
the harbor. The history of every discov- 
ery, of every enterprise of benevolence, 
of every Christian reform, is the history of 
toil and watching through long discourage- 
ments. I love to read the narrative of Pal- 
issy the potter, of his painful struggles with 
adversity, of his gropings after the scien- 
tific truth he was seeking, and of his final 
victory. Sorrow and poverty and toil 
lodged with that brave spirit for many a 
weary month, but at length came singing 



150 THE NIGHT-LODGING 

and shouting. All Galileos and Keplers 
and Newtons have had this experience. 
All the Luthers and Wesleys who have 
pioneered great reformations, and all the 
missionaries of Christ who have ever in- 
vaded the darkness of paganism, have had 
to endure night-work and watching before 
the hand of God opened to them the gates of 
the '' dayspring from on high.'' This is the 
lesson to be learned by us pastors, by the 
teachers in mission-schools, by colporteurs, 
and by every toiler for Christ and souls. 
'' We have toiled all night, and caught 
nothing," exclaimed the tired and hungry 
disciples. Then in the early gray of t'he 
daybreak they espied their Master on the 
beach ; the net is cast on the right side of 
the ship, and it swarms with fish enough 
to break its meshes. Nearly every revival 
season I have ever passed through in my 
church has been on this same fashion. 
Difficulties and discouragements have sent 
' us to our knees, and then we have been 



AND THE DAY-DAWN, IS I 

surprised by the advent of the Master in 
great power and blessing. God tests His 
people before He blesses them. The night 
is mother of the day; trust through the 
dark brings triumph in the dawn. 

Precisely similar are the deepest and 
richest experiences of many a regenerated 
soul. The sorrows of penitence were the 
precursors of the joys of pardon. I have 
known a convicted sinner to endure the 
pangs of contrition when no small tempest 
lay upon him and no sun or stars appeared ; 
his soul was in the horror of a great dark- 
ness. To such distressed hearts God often 
sends a flood of relief and joy as sudden 
as the light that poured on Saul of Tarsus. 
To others conversion has been a slower, 
gentler process. Like the gradual com- 
ing of the dawn, — as we have witnessed it 
from a railway car or from a mountain 
summit, — darkness has slowly given place 
to steel-gray, and the steel-gray to silver, 
the silver has reddened into ruddy gold, and 



152 THE NIGHT-LODGING 

all has developed so quietly and steadily 
that we could not fix the precise birth- 
moment of the day. Thousands of true 
Christians cannot fix the precise date of 
their conversion. But the dawn of hope 
and new life really begins when the mercy 
of Jesus Christ is rightly apprehended, and 
the soul begins to see and to follow Him. 

" 'T is midnight with my soul till He, 
Bi-ight Morning Star, bids darkness flee." 

Those who suffer the sharpest sorrow 
for their own sinfulness and guilt, and are 
brought into the deepest self-loathing, are 
commonly those who are the most thor- 
oughly converted. The height of their 
joy is proportioned to the depth of their 
distress. Christ is all the more precious 
to them for having painfully felt the need 
of Him. The dawn of their new hope 
has been unmistakably from heaven, and 
their after pathway has shone brighter and 
brighter to the perfect day. 



AND THE DAY-DAWN. 1 53 

One other truth — the most ineffably glo- 
rious of all — is illustrated by this, simile of 
the night-lodging in the khan. The earth- 
ly life of God's children is only a mere 
encampment for a night. To many are 
appointed sleeplessness and tears. Some- 
times through poverty, sometimes through 
long sickness, sometimes under darkly 
mysterious bereavements, they have ''wait- 
ed patiently on the Lord more than they 
that watch for the morning." They knew 
that the dawn of heaven lay behind the 
clouds, and they held out in confident 
expectation of it. Paul himself had such 
sharp experiences that he once confessed 
that he had '' a desire to break camp and to 
be with Christ, which is far better." A 
most lovely Christian, whose life had been 
consumed by a slow cancer, went home to 
glory a few days ago. While the poor frail 
tent of the body was decaying by inches, 
she was feasting on rapturous glimpses of 
heaven. Through the long weary night 



154 



THE NIGHT-LODGING, ETC, 



pain and suffering lodged in that fluttering 
tent ; but at length 

" The dawn of heaven broke, — 

The summer morn she sighed for, 
The fair, sweet morn awoke." 




OUR TWO HOMES. 



T^HAT beautiful passage in the fifth 
-*■ chapter of the Second Epistle to the 
Corinthians, according to Dean Alford's and 
Dr. Samuel Davidson's happy rendering, 
reads about as follows : *^ Being always con- 
fident, and knowing that whilst we are in our 
home in the body we are away from our 
home in the Lord. For we walk by faith, 
not by appearance. We are still confident, 
and w^ell content rather to go from our 
home in the body and to come to our home 
in the Lord." 

The contrast is a sharp and distinct one 
between 02ir two homes. In the first verse 
of this chapter Paul speaks of our present 
home as a mere ''tent" ; the other home is 



156 OUR TWO HOMES. 

'' a mansion of God eternal in the heavens." 
In other words, my soul — which is really 
myself — has two homes : one of them is 
in this frail and flimsy tent which I call 
a body, and the other is in that enduring 
and glorious habitation called heaven. A 
tent is the most transient of all lodging- 
places. It is pitched to-day ; to-morrow its 
pins are pulled up and the canvas is carried 
away to some other spot, leaving only the 
ashes of a camp-fire. What a vivid picture 
is this of the frail body in which my im- 
mortal soul encamps for a few swift-flying 
years ! Half of all the human tents do not 
last more than thirty years ; and if by much 
mending and patching they are made to last 
for fourscore years, yet they easily yield to 
the blast of death and fly away. Paul's tent 
had seen some rough usage ; it was so mi- 
gratory and so drenched with storms, and 
so mauled by persecutions and scarred with 
the lash, that the old hero who lived in it 
longed ^' to depart and to be with Christ, 



OUR TWO HOMES. I 57 

which was far better." He was constantly 
getting homesick for his Father's house. 
A happy day was it for him when the exe- ' 
cutioner's axe clove his poor old leaky tent 
in twain, and suffered his heaven-bound 
spirit to fly away and be at rest. 

A thousand things, speculative and poeti- 
cal, have been written in regard to the 
Christian's future home. The Bible says 
just enough to rouse our curiosity and to 
stimulate speculation, but not enough to 
spoil the sublime mystery which overhangs 
it like a cloud of glory. A few things seem 
to my own mind at least to be well estab- 
lished. Heaven is a place ; it is not a mere 
state or condition of blissful holiness. A 
distinctly bounded place of abode it must 
be, or else John's view of it from Patmos 
was an idle phantasm. God's Word speaks 
of it as a '' city," and as filled with '' many 
mansions." The light of it proceeds from 
a central throne ; for the Lamb in the 
midst of the throne is the light thereof. Its 



158 OUR TWO HOMES. 

pellucid pavements are like unto fine gold. 
The music of its praises fell upon the old 
apostle's ear with such a sublime roar of 
melodies that— likening them to the Medi- 
terranean's surf dashing upon the rocks 
of Patmos — he calls them 'Hhe sound 
of many waters/' Surrounding this vast 
scene of splendor he saw something which 
he describes as walls of precious stones, 
and these walls were pierced with gates 
of pearl. 

There is something beautifully sugges- 
tive in this many-sidedness of heaven, 
with gates of entrance from every point 
of the compass. It emphasizes the catho- 
licity of God's house, into which all the 
redeemed shall enter, from all parts of the 
globe, and with their varying theological 
and denominational opinions. All shall 
come in through Christ Jesus, and yet 
through many gateways. Thank God, no 
bigot shall be able to bar out one soul that 
has been washed in the blood of the Lamb ! 



OUR TWO HOMES. 1 59 

The variety of ^'fruits" on the tree of Hfe 
points to the idea of satisfying every pos- 
sible taste and aspiration of God's vast 
household of many kindreds and tongues 
and nations. Why surrender the view of a 
literal home of the redeemed such as John 
has described to us? Why volatilize it all 
away into the thin vapor of metaphor? If 
John did not see what he described, then 
he saw nothing at all ; and if he saw noth- 
ing real, then the closing visions of the 
Apocalypse are a splendid fog-bank. For 
one, I prefer to hold to the actual words 
which Revelation gives me, and if, when I 
get there, I find something utterly different, 
then it will be time enough to make the 
discovery. In the mean time there are 
millions of us who are simple-hearted 
enough to fire our faith by singing about 
those 

" Bulwarks with salvation strong, 
And streets of shining gold." 

That our heavenly home will satisfy our 



l60 OUR TWO HOMES, 

fullest social longings, we cannot doubt. 
No one need complain of lack of ^' good 
society" there. Old Dr. Emmons is not 
the only Christian who has fed his hopes 
of '' a good talk with the Apostle Paul." 
Dr. Guthrie is not the only parent who 
has felt assured that ''his little Johnnie 
would meet him inside the gate." Many a 
pastor expects to find his converted flock 
as a '' crown of rejoicing to him in that 
day." The recognition of friends there 
cannot possibly be* a question of doubt. 
No barriers of caste can separate those who 
are children of the one Father and dwell- 
ing in the same household. When Cineas, 
the ambassador of Pyrrhus, came back 
from his visit to Rome in the days of her 
glory, he reported to his sovereign that he 
had seen a '' commonwealth of kings." So 
will it be in heaven, where every heir of 
redeeming grace will be as a king and 
priest unto God, and a divine adoption 
shall make every one a member of the 



OUR TWO HOMES, l6l 

royal family. What a comforting thought 
it is that we shall never be compelled to 
pull up our tent-poles any longer in quest 
of a pleasanter home ! Heaven will have no 
'' moving-day." No longer shall we dread 
to be pulled away from associations which 
we love, and sent off into strange and 
uncongenial places. When you and I, 
brother, have packed up at the tap of 
death's signal-bell, we shall never be 
obliged to change our quarters again. 
There is a delightful permanence in that 
word, '* Forever with the Lord." 

The leagues to that home are few and 
short. Happy is that child of Jesus who is 
always listening for the footfall this side of 
the golden gate, and for the voice of invita- 
tion to hurry home. A true life is just a 
tarrying in the tent /<?r Christ until we go 
into the mansion with Christ. '' I hope 
your Master has gone to heaven," said some 
one to a slave when his master was dead. 
'' Fse afraid he has not gone dare," replied 
II 



1 62 OUR TWO HOMES, 

Ben, '' for I never heard him speak of dat. 
When he go to de North, or de Virginny 
Springs, he always be gettin' ready for 
many weeks. I never see him gettin' ready 
for goin' to heaven." The simple negro's 
words are a test and an admonition for 
each one of us. For let us be assured that 
not one of us will ever see that Home 
unless we are made ready for it by Christ 
Jesus. 




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the very bosom of the Saviour."— Christian Advocate. 

v. — GOD'S LIGHT ON DARK CLOUDS . . $0.75 

VI. — THE CEDAR CHRISTIAN. i8mo . . . . $0.75 

VII. — STRAY ARROWS $0.60 



ROBERT CARTER AND BROTHERS, 
NEW YORK. 



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